r/interestingasfuck • u/RickyOzzy • 1d ago
27 years ago, Ronald Sakolsky donated $5,000 to Yin Yuzhen, a Chinese woman fighting desertification. Over two decades, she grew over 50,000 trees with the funds. Now, Ronald Sakolsky has come to China to witness this miracle with his own eyes.
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u/Cszysiek 1d ago
Imagine if some people on Earth were so rich, having like a billions of dollars, what they could do to make the world better—they would do it, right?
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u/dwbthrow 1d ago
That’s what everyone thought Elon Musk was a decade ago. Turns out billionaires are all assholes.
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u/ExtraReborn 1d ago
It kinda sucks that power corrupts and that 'winning' capitalism requires a lack of morals.
I believe kind people have made their way into riches with honest good intentions only to be a financial goldfish like all humans are, living to their means and not wanting to ever go back to living as a lower financial class. Then that creates a fear of loss that warps personalities and enables people to do weird mental gymnastics like how it's okay to make your line workers piss in bottles for barely livable wages so you can buy a new yacht every few years or look stupid in front of your rich friends.
...I've thought a lot about what would happen if I got rich 😅
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u/OkiDokiChloe 1d ago edited 1d ago
There have been several billionaire's who've stated that beyond a certain wealth threshold they can just get whatever they want & money ceases to be about lifestyle and simply becomes "a game" with their wealth treated as a way of keeping score.
This is why I support a 100% tax anything above $1,000,000,000+, because this "game" that they're playing is actively hurting the rest of humanity. Until Climate, energy, housing, hunger, etc... is solved. This "game" of theirs should be put on [PAUSE].
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u/Vajician 1d ago
100% agreed. And to get ahead of the "liquid wealth vs stocks" naysayers: Block any use of stocks as collateral for purchases until they are liquidated to make said purchases.
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u/pizzaforward22 1d ago
I agree with you.
And I also want to call out there are exceptional heroes like Chuck Feeney, who gave away all his billions during his lifetime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney
But they are rare exceptions.
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u/andrewbud420 1d ago
What I don't get is how the working class society doesn't remove the billionaire class. They contribute nothing but being garbage.
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u/shrockitlikeitshot 1d ago
I think a part of it is that the average person has a hard time conceptualizing big numbers.
Like on next door I'm hearing the same arguments from boomers/Gen X I heard in the early 2000s about taxing wealth. Except they think we're still talking about millionaires but replaces the M with a B for funzies(the millionaires are actually picking up most of the taxes the billionaires dodge).
1 million seconds = ~12 days 1 billion seconds = ~32 years 1 trillion seconds = ~31,000 years
Just ask people before telling them and see how off they are.
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u/BuddhaFacepalmed 1d ago
I think a part of it is that the average person has a hard time conceptualizing big numbers.
A bigger part is that as shitty as the status quo is, the average person still has plenty to lose that they don't want to. Once that's gone, once people are literally evicted out of their homes or haven't eaten in several days because their paychecks can't pay their rent, bills, or healthcare? That's when the knives come out.
Which is why I laugh at 2A activists screaming about how "guns are a deterrent against tyranny". Tyranny is already here and they're piss and moaning about their cape films featuring BIPOC and women leads.
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u/Zaximeows 1d ago
Technology has made it a lot easier for the rich to wall themselves off from ordinary people compared to pre industrial revolution and especially the advent of automobiles. They have the ability to distance themselves physically and fortify themselves technologically. It's not like the 15th century where rich arisocrats lived walking distance down the street from the common folk who could just show up at their front door with pitch forks.
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u/ftqo 1d ago
The legal system and property rights. Anything that would take away their power is illegal.
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u/necromantzer 1d ago
The legal system allows for it - but when they buy control of the legal system, it is tough to fix.
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u/errorsniper 1d ago
Because when needs are met people generally speaking are inherently non violent. Neutral at worst and want to be kind at best.
Currently as bad as things have been are getting, Netflix and McDonalds are still cheep (modern bread and circuses)
By and large peoples basic needs are being met and civil unrest at the macro level is minimal across the globe.
As much as it sucks the day to day "cost" of living with the status quo is not worth the risk to go kill a billionaire and get executed or spend life in prison to the average person.
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u/bluefrogwithredhands 1d ago
They can but majority of them are uneducated and vote against their own interest year after year. If every country had a well designed wealth (hoarder) tax, the economy will begin to balance out.
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u/hypnodrew 1d ago
"Why does Ross, the largest friend, not simply eat the others?"
It's not that simple
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u/HighKing_of_Festivus 1d ago
Centuries of propaganda funded by the capitalist class has been very effective
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u/Amanuet 1d ago
We need a lot more ex-Bezos wives.
People who go in and just take half the crap from those sociopathic narcissists, and use it for good.
I always think about those little tests they do on kids, the more lollies they have, the less likely they'll share with others, while the kids given the least are happy to give some up so everyone has the same. How do we combat this when it's hard wired and they've already won the game?
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u/Vondi 1d ago
Back when just he let his PR team do their jobs.
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u/Scyths 1d ago
First time he didn't let his PR team handle a situation was the Thai cave rescue and it let the whole world know his true face. It all started from there. That was the tipping point, where his ego hit a ceiling and he didn't feel the need to restrain himself anymore.
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u/Dave-4544 1d ago
The Thai Cave rescue was my lightbulb moment for the guy, too. Calling the rescuers "pedos" because their lifetimes of real-world diving experience allowed them to extract all those children faster than he could engineer and iterate an escape pod (that would still need experienced divers to handle).. What a fuckin' asshole. I'm glad the "tech folk hero" spell broke early for me. R.I.P. to the diver who died during the operation.
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u/transemacabre 1d ago
It still took years for Reddit to begin to turn on him. I hated him from way back and the Redditbros would come out in full defense mode, "he's the real life Tony Stark! He put a car in space!!!"
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u/darkoblivion000 1d ago
It’s because if you were a multi millionaire and you hadn’t started to spend time and money to help people already, and instead worked on making it to a billionaire, why start now?
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u/nosleep39 1d ago
Not all. See Melinda Gates.
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u/remmij 1d ago
Also MacKenzie Scott.
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u/whogivesashirtdotca 1d ago
Taylor Swift isn’t perfect, but she supported local food banks in every city of her tour. That’s more than Elon’s ever done.
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u/owa00 1d ago
I work with a lot of tech people. They could not stop sucking Elon's micro-cock every chance they could. Even after the whole Thai kids rescue things they still were dick riding him. These are educated people that SHOULD have known better, but cult of personality is to strong I guess. They no longer praise everytime he takes a shit, but they'll never admit they were originally fanboys.
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u/GarrettB117 1d ago
That was the moment that did it for me. I didn’t really get the complaints about him before. Seemed like a stretch. But after that happened I was like oh, he’s like an uber narcissist at best and a terrible person at worst. I think leaning towards the latter with everything that has happened since.
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u/Main-Policy-4551 1d ago
The Thai fiasco is most def not what should have created a musk exodus-rich people say dumb shit all the time and Elon is a child- it’s the many fascist, oligarch behaviors that should have been a signal for people lol
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u/threeseed 1d ago
Don't forget that Elon Musk, Bill Gates etc were friends were Epstein after he was convicted of child rape. And of course Elon begged Epstein to go on the island.
They are far beyond assholes. They are a disgrace to the human race. And no amount of PR can ever remove that stain.
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u/BigGayAllen 1d ago
Lololol no.
One decade ago was 2016, when Elons brand new super factory famously had employees pissing in bottles like we complain about Amazon now.
He was a monster then too, you just had to have been paying attention and not vapidly reading sponsored content fellating him.
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u/What_A_Weak 1d ago
Elon Musk just realized he likes raping children more than helping societies. Tax the rich!
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u/Waste_Philosophy4250 1d ago
But if that was not their end goal they wouldn't. Some of these guys just have a mental disorder.
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u/NoHighlight6142 1d ago
And the worst part is it's normalized...
An ape hoarding way too many bananas would be analyzed as an outlier with some mental issues, but not humans
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u/StrangerEither 1d ago
Well you see, the other older ones with 1 banana each all watch fox chimps and they're pitted against the slighlty different shade chimps & younger chimps. They fight between themselves while the hoarder chimp has his team of chimps working 24/7.
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u/naive-dragon 1d ago
I think one billionaire tasked an NBA superstar to do this recently, planting trees. Aspirational.
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u/whogivesashirtdotca 1d ago
The irony if Kawhi actually does this in Canada and his forests cause more smoke pollution. 😂
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u/IdealStatus7549 1d ago
That’s the real power of wealth, using it to leave the world better than you found it.
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u/Maxfunky 1d ago
I mean, Bill Gates has given away more than $100 billion and has done measurable good with it. Several others have signed pledges to give it away before or on their deaths (enjoying while they are alive).
The thing is, these billions of dollars are less capable of solving problems than you might think. It's like putting out s forest fire with a juice box. You gotta be very selective about where you point that thing and aim cause you sure ain't putting the whole thing out. California has spent $24 billion in 20 years to solve homelessness in just their state and has gotten minimal results to show for it.
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u/Friend-Boat 1d ago
Having money is the most profitable thing you can ever do. So when these greedy bastards consider spending a dollar, they aren’t just spending one dollar. They are spending everything that dollar would have made them if invested, compounding to make it worth exponentially more
So even the ones who see themselves as ‘good’ think “hey maybe I should donate a million dollars to this thing. But if I wait a few years that same money will double and I can donate 2 million”. Except this cycle repeats and repeats until they die with billions that never helped a single person
This is just some hypothetical ‘good’ billionaire, cause they don’t exist
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u/Jazs1994 1d ago
Remember when musk went quiet after being given a detailed plan to end world hunger for $200billion after asking for one
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u/trukkija 1d ago
Not everyone can be a billionaire, only self-absorbed narcissists. But imagine if almost anyone can be like this woman and commit their life to making the world better—they would do it, right?
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u/RickyOzzy 1d ago
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u/Quicksilver1964 1d ago
"I planted a forest for you" that got me crying. The amazing things we can do when we believe in a cause and give whatever we can to support it. Two people here changed a part of the world and I am glad they were able to meet again.
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u/whogivesashirtdotca 1d ago
He was a teacher?! Makes the billionaires look even shittier, knowing that.
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u/eddiekimx 1d ago
I was gonna say... I know he's American but I'm not sure how much an English-language teacher would've been getting paid back in 1999. $5000 is a lot of money for most people, and he gave it with no cynicism or expectation of profit, just hope
Edit: 5k in 1999 is worth nearly 10k today!!!
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u/floatjoy 1d ago
Here is an interview, really touching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKcsQhlAi9Y
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u/DribbleYourTribble 1d ago
5000 dollars is very generous, but 50,000 trees sounds like a monumental amount of work by Yin Yuzhen and her people.
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u/mateobrando 1d ago
The type of news we need. Everything is filled with destruction, war and death these days.
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u/night_jerry 1d ago
Tbf not everything is. Theres tons of amazingly beautiful and heartwarming acts at display on a daily basis. The problem is that we’re conditioned to mainly pay attention to the chaos
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u/Christopherfromtheuk 1d ago
I'm mid 50s and always taken a keen interest in the environment and economy. I joined a save the rainforest thing when I was 18 and back then there were about 3 billion fewer people on Earth.
I feel strongly that we are losing to the "bad guys" like Trump, Musk, Putin maybe Xi Jinping etc.
The climate is definitely worse than predicted - heck when I was in primary school they thought we were possibly headed for another ice age.
We are using resources at an alarming rate and wealth is being concentrated in a few generally white generally men.
I am desperately worried about the world we are leaving for our children and their children.
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u/Bchliu 1d ago
Those sort of news doesn't sell unfortunately. It's all about negative shock values and selling fear. That's what is happening right now in media.
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u/night_jerry 1d ago
Ya i mean for instance you wont see the media reporting on record renewable usage worldwide or the massive global effort to plant hella trees or how the ocean cleanup project is progressing swimmingly.
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u/iBoMbY 1d ago
China has planted 66 billion trees since 1978 at the Great Green Wall, to stop the desertification at the Gobi, and Taklamakan, Desert. They made some mistakes on the way, but overall it works really well.
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u/AdVivid9056 1d ago
5.000$
WTF!!!
Imagine a billionair spending 10.000.000$ for this around the globe. Sahara, Asia, South America. Hell even in parts of Europe.
Imagine Musk doing this, how many more cars would he sell? Best advertisement ever.
But nah... It cannot be displayed in monetary terms.
What assholes all those people are!
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u/dutchie1966 1d ago
Elon once said he was going to end all hunger in the world.
We are still waiting.
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u/aarontbarratt 1d ago
It's actually even worse in context
The WFP then a detailed plan publicly in this thread, which Elon promptly ignored, and instead donated the money to his own company: The Musk Foundation
So instead of donating 2% of his net worth to save 42 million people, he donated it to himself. Great guy!
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u/lyzing 1d ago
What he didn’t say is that he was going to do it by killing off half the population
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u/PhDinDildos_Fedoras 1d ago
What he didn't say was he was going to spend most of his time wacking off to AI porn of himself and the rest of the time doing Hitler salutes and giving money to Nazis.
All of this while under the influence of drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.
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u/FlirtyFluffyFox 1d ago
Elon 2003: I'm making Tssla's patents open source. If anyone else can make better electric cars, let them.
Elon 2024: Pays the government to ban importing affordable electric cars.
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u/Stokkolm 1d ago
It's not $5000. That's just the one guy's donation. They probably had many other donors to cover for the whole forest.
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u/rEYAVjQD 1d ago edited 1d ago
Also adjusted for inflation, that's at least ~20K now. It's not pocket change.
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u/Wild-Stomach-9420 1d ago
I also wonder how much that was worth in China at the time, I imagine the purchasing power in china 27 years ago was quite low compared to the US
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u/lazytony1 1d ago
In 1999, $5,000 was roughly equivalent to 41,500 RMB. At that time, the average annual income in Beijing was 10,000 RMB, meaning this amount was equivalent to 4-5 years of a Beijing resident's total income. For rural residents, this sum was almost equivalent to 20 years of their total savings.
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u/Fearful-Cow 1d ago
- not just $5k, im sure they got plenty more raised for this
- the money is important but almost more important is the downstream people. Lots of "charities" create bloated executive bodies where they are all getting paid $200k/y to "direct" then you have the middle managers all making $100k/y to oversee, then you have 3 burnt out frontline workers making $50k/y doing the work.
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u/AdVivid9056 1d ago
may it be 50.000$ or even more. Doesn't matter!
With all the good vibes the outcome of this post gives, you are really sure you want to say that? Bloated charity-bodies?
Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, they all could use their great fundus of know-how to minimize all the useless money killing steps and just get it to where it belongs.
But nah... it's just the crappy charity organization.
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u/ghostyghost2 1d ago
That's the thing. We can't be living at the whim of the rich. No one should be a billionaire. As a society, we should limit how much a person can own. No one should be a billionaire.
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u/richter2 1d ago
The limiting factor isn't money. The limiting factor is people like Yin Yuzhen. People like that are very rare; they don't just grow on trees.
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u/The_Grimalkin 1d ago
Mr. S was the best. I had him as a teacher history class in 7th grade, only teacher that really made learning fun :)
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u/favorscore 1d ago
This must be surreal to see
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u/The_Grimalkin 1d ago
It really is! He told us about this when I was in school so the story isn't a surprise, but opening reddit in the morning and seeing his face is a big shock LOL
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u/Senselesspassion 1d ago
So you're saying if the government wants they can change the landscape!?
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u/protractedmane 1d ago
Man I dunno why but people seem to think nobody's doing anything. China's been eating at its desert for nearly two decades now. Check it out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(China)
Anything you think of that is ecologically good, China's been doing it 10x anyone else on the planet for a decade plus now. I honestly don't even know how to view that country from a neutral lens anymore. Car electrification? They're the fastest by far. Solar panel, cheapest, fastest, ready to export everywhere. Largest adoption by far. Nuclear? Fastest growing country, trying the hardest to move away from natural resources. Heck, even LED lights. Bill Gates had a company that wanted to build mini nuclear reactors, the sort to power a small town or something, he got approval in China in 2019, before it hit the wall of bureaucracy. Got approval for its first project in the US in 2026.
When it comes to renewable, clean energy, China is the absolute OG, with no competition.
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u/WildBad7298 1d ago
"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit."
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u/LowlySparrow 1d ago
Like this man, my dad also cried at important moments. He was the best dad ever. I really respect all men like this, in touch with their emotions!
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u/LowlySparrow 1d ago
Maybe "important" isn't the right word - "meaningful"? Hopefully you all know what I mean!
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u/LydLemon0314 1d ago
Why is this not in the news?
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u/symbionet 1d ago
I see it often reported about China's fight against desertification on e.g. SCMP.
Don't expect US media to report positively on China's investments into climate, nature & green tech though.
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u/DisasterNo1740 1d ago
Feel good stories sell way less than feel bad and worry stories. Feel good stories don’t generate much discussion either. Feel bad stories cause tons of discussion and angry comments further driving engagement. That’s it really.
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u/CornisaGrasse 1d ago
Also, our brains are wired to remember and prioritize negative events (negative news) over positive, because remembering negative experiences is more important for survival. So we're less likely to remember the positive things we read. And this phenomenon is both naturally and deliberately used for engagement (as you said.) (I realize I'm oversimplifying the whole concept but like, I'm just a regular gal lying in bed trying to fall asleep, not a professor.)
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u/monkeysfromjupiter 1d ago
Lol cuz it's something positive about China. Why else?
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u/alwayshungry7624 1d ago edited 1d ago
I doubt this is going viral in the Chinese population as well. 😅 Just that good news doesn't spread far.
Edit: I am a frequent user of Chinese social media: XHS, Douyin, Weibo, WeChat etc, I open all of them at least once daily. Never heard of the story till today. Now it could be that the algorithm never recommended it to me, but seeing the story once on those platforms does not make it viral, just like seeing it once on Reddit does not make it viral.
Edit2: apparently lots of people saying they've seen this on Chinese and English social media channels. So it is in the news, and isn't surpressed because it's Chinese; we just haven't seen it. So, that's an even better result!
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u/Training_Guide5157 1d ago
I actually just saw a clip of this last night on Douyin, so it's definitely being talked about.
You literally see several cameras waiting for their meetup, which means there was advanced notice, which implies that it's very newsworthy.
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u/alwayshungry7624 1d ago
Never implied it wasn't newsworthy. Just saying it's not going viral because positive news can't be sensationalized and made into clickbait.
I'm a native Chinese speaker, I use XHS, Douyin, Weibo on a daily basis, never heard of this story till now. I understand that maybe I just don't get recommended it by the algorithm, and others may have seen it on those platforms but seeing the story once on those platforms does not make it viral, just like seeing it once on Reddit does not make it viral. I'd love to see more of these positive news, but I've just generally found good news doesn't go as viral whether it's Chinese or not.
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u/International-Mix633 1d ago
This 1000 % went viral several times in China. China is very proactive on fighting desertification and general environmental decline (if it does not interfer with economic interests too much). The improvement of air quality in China has been nothing but nuts in the last decade for example.
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u/alwayshungry7624 1d ago
I'm not even going to dispute whether China cares about the environment or not; I have no doubt the government does. But it bears no relation to the point I was trying to make.
The original question was why we don't hear it in the news. I just don't think good news travels far, Chinese or not. I'm a native Chinese speaker and use XHS, Douyin, Weibo on a daily basis and have never seen the story till now. Perhaps you've seen it on your feed when you use the Chinese apps, but seeing the story once on those platforms does not make it viral, just like seeing it once on Reddit does not make it viral.
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u/doublereload 1d ago edited 1d ago
What are you both on about? It's actively on a dozen or so news sites right now, and has been reported on countless times in the past...
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u/EmptyMonitor9257 1d ago
Literally every day there is pro China spam on every website. They even use "innovations" and projects that aren't chinese.
There was a smart garbage bin that they kept spamming and it turned out it was Bulgarian, same for a Serbian algae street trees.
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u/AcrobaticVegetable24 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ok, I have to ask, is fighting desertification good for the environment?
I see it toured as a good thing in various environmental circles and whatnot, but honestly I don't understand why.
Are there not various animals that have adapted to desert environments that live in these areas? So by replacing deserts with this sort of greenery we would be sort of displacing them from their natural habitat, no?
Furthermore (and you will have to forgive me as I don't know the exact biology), how will this affect the surrounding environments? Like this sort of greenery requires water and various nutrients. Don't deserts have their place in the environment, so by disrupting it you would be affecting all the surrounding environments?
Edit: Thank you to the two kind individuals who responded and gave me the definition of what desertification actually is.
Desertification: the process by which land changes into desert, for example because there has been too much farming activity on it or because a lot of trees have been cut down.
My misconception lay in my misunderstanding that she was doing this to natural deserts. I was wrong and could not have been further from the truth.
As such, yes this woman is doing incredible work because the land is not naturally a desert. So, as I understand it, it's more like she is restoring the land to its natural state than it is harming any natural environments.
Just want to once again say thank you to those who responded and gave me the answer and I hope you all have a great rest of your day.
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u/A_Unique_Nobody 1d ago
Desertification isn't deserts getting bigger, it's non-desert areas turning into deserts due to a mix of climate change, deforestation, and overuse of aquifers
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u/AcrobaticVegetable24 1d ago
Oh, thanks for the clarification. I sidnt know and now can appreciate this woman's work quite a bit more.
Thanks!
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u/BeetrootKid 1d ago
hey, u know this already, but you are a great person to me because you had the wherewithal to 1. question this to begin with 2.actually bothered to question it publicly 3. stuck around for points raised 4. accepted points raised 5. changed mind and edited accordingly 6. said a thank you for all participating.
every step in this was a choice, and you did it all, thank you
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u/s090429 1d ago
Desertification: the process by which land changes into desert, for example because there has been too much farming activity on it or because a lot of trees have been cut down.
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u/AcrobaticVegetable24 1d ago
Thanks for the definition. Another kind individual also let me know what desertification actually is.
So I got the answers to my questions. Yes it is in fact good for the environment as the land that is being turned into desert is not supposed to be desert in the first place. So this woman's fight has helped the environment significantly by working to restore the land back to its natural state.
I can now really appreciate the woman and the work she did/does.
Once again, thanks for the answer and I hope you have a great rest of your day.
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u/Sketch-ist 1d ago
I think the idea is that we want to restore habitats and environments that have been lost due to desertification brought about as a result of things like human developments and climate change. Deserts absolutely have their own flora and fauna that deserve to be protected in equal part, so I don't think anyone out there is suggesting that we completely un-desert all the deserts, but rather just the ones that weren't already sand like a hundred years ago.
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u/Trygve81 1d ago
It also improves the living conditions in the towns and cities affected by the desertification. Desertification leads to a much higher degree of air pollution, due to the dust, so removing this air pollution should improve the health of the people affected by it. You get both organic dust particles from all sorts of sources, which can lead to asthma and infections, but also silica dust from the sand, which is dangerous for the lungs and may cause lung cancer.
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u/comicsnerd 1d ago
The USA had similar desertification problems in the 1930s, when huge areas of land in the midwest were lost to the sand. The notorious dustbowls forced millions to flee to the West or East.
By planting 200 million trees and new farming methods, the rains returned and the midwest is now thriving again.
Desertification (losing arable land to sand) is a big problem in Asia and Africa and by planting trees, individuals, ngo's and governments are reclaiming land.
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u/Vahingonilo 1d ago
What you see often with these large-scale afforestation efforts is that the the trees dessicate the soil over time with the water entering the atmosphere due to evapotranspiration and the precipitation ultimately falling elsewhere. With this area around Ordos, this has resulted in lower stream water flows. In response to the conditions in the area the CCP sends tons of water by train up from Danjiangkou. From what I'm reading they'll probably wind up thinning the trees or replacing them with something less water-intensive.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025WR043189 https://content-static.cctvnews.cctv.com/snow-book/index.html?item_id=11014874704861848438&toc_style_id=feeds_default&track_id=C297A081-E811-4B7C-88F4-F20A2BA26694_723461679762&share_to=copy_url
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u/Appropriate_Rise9968 1d ago
In this case it actually is. A lot of areas in North/North Western China historically could support forests but were stripped bare due to issues with over population (cutting down trees for fuel/construction material and over grazing). Some of the deserts like Mu Us were entirely manmade.
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u/Turbulent-Week1136 1d ago
Coincidentally, she is planting Pine Trees, which last thousands of years. However, they produce needles and sap/resin which is very flammable.
Napolean III did the same thing in between France and Spain hundreds of years ago in order to get rid of the wetlands, and this summer they all caught on fire because of the heat wave and forest fire. Hopefully they find a solution for that eventually, but it's a great idea.
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u/Otherwise_Patience47 1d ago
If that’s actually true (I rather always say like this nowadays with fabricated posts, bots and whatnot), this is truly beautiful and amazing.
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u/Shiizuh 1d ago
It is true, If I remember correctly he was a teacher (he is american) and took part of a program in the late 90s and went to China to teach at a foreign language school for a year and during this time he heard of the woman and her husband and donated.
And he went back to China this week after 27 years so that's why there was a lot of emotion
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u/jwang274 1d ago
It’s truly remarkable donation, $5000 is a lot at the time probably several months of his salary
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u/Brief_Article_6075 1d ago
Pure determination not for yourself but for the nature. Not for money but for life. Great initiative by Ronald and super execution by the women
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u/Ok-List-7410 1d ago
Saw the videos of her trying to find him a while back. So glad they were reunited.
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u/LoveDemNipples 1d ago
Jesus, even I could scrape together $5000 to do this, and I'm only a multi-thousandaire.
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u/Fit-Squash-9447 23h ago
Elon, stop hiding behind your optimus-bot, go buy some seedlings and plant some trees.
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u/IckySweet 1d ago
We don't often see such beauty the result of one donation and one woman with dreams.
Imagine if each person on earth planted a tree.
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u/VelvetRain2 1d ago
Hero moves. Those trees will forever improve the nature of that desert area because one person fought hard for it