A controversy over a waterfall has cascaded into a social media storm in China, even prompting an explanation from the water body itself.
A hiker posted a video that showed the flow of water from Yuntai Mountain Waterfall - billed as China’s tallest uninterrupted waterfall - was coming from a pipe built high into the rock face.
The clip has been liked more than 70,000 times since it was first posted on Monday. Operators of the Yuntai tourism park said that they made the “small enhancement” during the dry season so visitors would feel that their trip had been worthwhile.
“The one about how I went through all the hardship to the source of Yuntai Waterfall only to see a pipe,” the caption of the video posted by user “Farisvov” reads.
Fake nature is the pinnacle of capitalism. Yes I include China
China is really refining capitalism into its own new monster.
Idk who’s capitalism monster scares me the most now.
who’s capitalism monster
Indeed: who is capitalism monster, really?
Initially I thought you meant ‘whose’, but this is funnier.
Although- what would you consider fake nature? There is a wetland park that was artificially turned into a wetland after reclaiming farmland for it. But it’s also legitimately a wetland with all the native plants and animals that go with it and it serves the same sort of water filtration purpose of a real wetland.
So is it fake nature?
I am in no way a fan of capitalism, but let’s define terms here.
Yes I include China
Are you a Maoist, then?
Literally the government doing it. How is that capitalism?
There is a vast resource of nearly all of humanity’s collective knowledge that you can tap to learn why a govt doing something doesn’t mean it’s not capitalism.
“What does error code XYZ mean on my 40 year old limited run old-tech device from a company that stopped existing 39 years ago and never made a manual”
Vs
“Is Earth round”
Let’s try it with this post
Why use brain when can ask?
Does the govt hold a monopoly on violence? Then its not capitalism
The government does not hold a monopoly on violence. You can just start punching people and they can just start punching you back.
It’s illegal to punch someone unprovoked, unless you are a cop; there is no legal repercussions for law enforcement to hit you in your sexy face. So no, the monopoly still remains with the government.
It’s illegal to punch someone unprovoked, unless you are a cop
It’s illegal when a cop does it, too. Although enforcement is scattershot at best. Spousal abuse statistics confirm as much.
there is no legal repercussions for law enforcement to hit you in your sexy face
Sizeable civil legal settlements suggest otherwise.
State Capitalism
a political system in which the state has control of production and the use of capital.
So communism by another name?
Yes in the sense that all communist countries are state capitalism, no in the sense that it betrays the very ideology of communism.
If you think about it it’s very much the same structure as a big business, with the “boss” at the very top, the party being the shareholders and executives swallowing all the profits and at the bottom are all the workers getting the shaft.
The main differences with normal capitalism is that the state here has an army, police and a full monopoly, so the party can literally do whatever they want to whoever they want within China. They don’t play by the rules, they write the rules, ie, a capitalist wet dream.
If every time comminism is tried, it turns into one specific bad thing, then wouldnt that mean that communism is inherently flawed?
Maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t think so, no. If anything it shows it’s difficult to achieve.
If every time someone is born, they die, then wouldn’t that mean that life is inherently worthless?
Ignoring whatever semantic arguments about socialism and communism, it’s easier to just point out that statement isn’t true.
Employee-owned businesses are socialist - in the actual definition of socialism where capital is owned by the workers. They work fine, maybe even better than capitalist businesses.
Fire departments are socialist - in a slightly different definition where a non-capital resource is owned by a community. They definitely work better than the capitalist versions that used to exist.
The problem with saying anything communist always fails is that they only call it communism when it fails. When it succeeds they just call it something else.
True Communism has never been tried on a large scale. It’s always authoritarians calling themselves Communist.
But yes, it is flawed in that humans are too tribal for it to work on a large scale.
Did you really just a “not true communism”?
I swear tankies are a meme.
Not necessarily, it could just mean that the vast majority of the time it would be legitimately implemented, a larger country that doesn’t like communism spends a lot of time and money interfering with it
Russia and China are plenty big.
No, it’s pretty distinct from communism, which is why it’s not called that
No.
Literally
There are other adverbs.
He literally doesn’t know them
It’s a figurative misunderstanding
But it’s being used correctly for a change!
CCP is just a business. The richest by design of course
Dude Tencent owns CCP now… Oh not that CCP…
Same people.
Capitalism is when bad things happen.
The planet is literally on fire directly caused by capitalism.
The housing crisis is because houses are seen as an investment vehicle instead of a basic human right.
The inflation is caused by corporations squeezing the population as much as they can to get every little cent they can.
Everything capitalism touch withers. There isn’t much new innovation anymore, just mega corpos buying other companies to stop the competition and lock the market.
What gets me about the mentality is that they blame capitalism for everything they don’t like and somehow imagine that none of those things would exist in a different system - it feels like they’ve never really thought about the reality of any other system.
Why would people living under true real communism not want a pretty waterfall? Do workers stop wanting a nice day out when their employer is state run?
Someone’s gonna get jailed for revealing state secrets and embarrassing the party.
According to the article, it’s something China does regularly to waterfalls and they don’t deny it.
Huangguoshu Waterfall, a famous tourist destination in the southwestern Guizhou province, has been helped by a water diversion project from a nearby dam since 2006 to maintain its flow during the dry season.
With a carefully-crafted explanation like that, it almost sounds like a positive.
If it’s main value of the waterfall is tourism, and if the water is needed downstream anyway, why not start the water diversion before the waterfall? Ultimately, all China is doing is giving everyone a false sense of security by masking the impact climate change is having on them.
Keeping the waterfall active would be conservation. I’m sure there would be an ecosystem around it.
True. On the other hand if it’s in a situation where water can be scarce, it might cause a bit more water evapiration to send it down a waterfall instead of a pipe
I’m not wise on chinese climate, but there’s probably a dry season regardless of climate change
Ultimately, all China is doing is giving everyone a false sense of security
??? By turning a piece of infrastructure into a piece of scenic beauty ???
masking the impact climate change
China is ranked 20th globally in Net Zero emissions readiness and is exceeding its 2050 and 2060 benchmark targets. Its the world leader in nuclear energy construction, building half of all nuclear power plants in construction globally. Its the world leader in mass transit, having laid over 3000 km of new HSR since 2008. And its the world leader in NEV construction, leading the world in the phase out of ICE engines.
But they put a pipe up to the top of a waterfall in order to keep it running during dry months, so they’re not taking climate change seriously?
Ranked 20th, but out of how many countries?
Well I pulled the full source: the 2021 Net Zero Readiness Report from KPMG.
KPMG evaluated 32 countries. Out of which China ranked 20th. Not terrible, but also not all that impressive with that context.
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This doesn’t seem all that awful to me. The waterfall isn’t fake, it’s just something they do in the dry season so visitors don’t feel like they wasted a trip. It’s not the choice I would make if I were running the park, but it doesn’t seem that bad to me.
If you go check a waterfall in the dry season and expect it to be pouring water like it was monsoon season, you deserve to be disappointed.
I tend to agree with you, nature should be experienced as-is, imo. I just don’t think this is that terrible.
It can mislead visitors about the severity of climate change… and it can impact the local ecosystem, if there are organisms around the waterfall that depend on there being a dry season each year.
If it is dry due to climate change I don’t see how there is an eco-system built around the drought worth preserving.
Most likely the dry season is naturally occurring, but the length and severity are affected by climate change.
Lol this guy bought it.
When I was I Niagara they did the opposite. They’d divert water into pipes bypassing the falls and “turn down” the falls at night.
It feels kinda gross to me. Like painting mountains white to simulate glaciers at Glacier National Park for people that flew on super carbon intensive planes to take pictures of the painted mountains. The glaciers all melted out due to climate change.
There’s already a dam at Hetch Hetchy. All they need now is some pumps and pipes to bring more tourists to Yosemite Valley in Summer.
I work near Yosemite, we don’t need one extra body there in the summer at all.
Well at least all the international visitors wouldn’t be disappointed with the dry cliffs.
When they wrote this “promted explanation from the water body itself” I thought it was some funny wording for a water agency or sth, not that they’d actually attempt to word their answer as if it’s from the waterfall itself, lol.
The park later posted on behalf of the waterfall saying, “I didn’t expect to meet everyone this way”. “As a seasonal scenery I can’t guarantee that I will be in my most beautiful form everytime you come to see me,” it adds. “I made a small enhancement during the dry season only so I would look my best to meet my friends.”
So the waterfall itself installed a pipe? I know it’s trying to be whimsical, but that part makes so sense whatsoever even in that context.
Don’t be ridiculous. It called one of its contractor friends to install the pipe for them.
Ha! Actually fake and gay!
Waterfalls cause rainbows.
Literally this
Untrue and joyous
Joious
You were expecting a JOJO reference, but it was me, DIO!
Everything in china is fake part 3000
Honestly that kind of phrase sounds like a remnant of the old, prejudice-clad world. Why continue with this ?
Okay
Everything in china is fake except for the Uyghur genocide part 3001
Yeah they just have some credit. There’s also Taiwan that’s real, they care about that a lot.
Is that supoosed to be a joke ?
I went to Niagara Falls last year and I was disappointed to find out that they could control the flow or even stop the flow of water going down the falls and sometimes did so in winter. But they also didn’t make a secret of it.
I had no idea. That is kinda disappointing lol
Only if you ignore WHY it has the ability to do that. The reason is the hydroelectric power plant, or more specifically the construction of the plant, required that they divert the falls for a couple years a LONG time ago. They have maintained the capacity to divert the flow of the river to ensure that they are able to perform maintenance on the plant and the various national park infrastructures around the falls. The seasonal diversions are usually to perform said maintenance as well as to protect parts of the power plant from freezing. It is actually one of the great engineering marvals of the early 20th century.
Thanks for the context - that’s fascinating.
Ya thanks for the interesting POV. I’ll try to look at it from that angle when I finally make it out over there.
It is, but they’re still really beautiful. The area is a big tourist trap, but the falls themselves are worth it.
I’d definitely still love to see it one day. And now at least that won’t catch me off guard lol.
Why?
It’s hard to describe why, but you visit that kind of place to see the wonders of nature and all that. Still, I’ll keep in mind that other person’s comment about the great feat of engineering it required.
Not even that it took a lot of work to make diversion possible, but also that what you’re seeing is, if anything, a slightly reduced version of the original, natural falls. The same river is going over the same spot it did originally, there is just infrastructure now that allows it to go elsewhere when the hydro dam that is also on the river needs maintenance.
They turned it off once to clear rubble underneath it so it looked more spectacular.
I don’t get why would that be disappointing?
Because you think you’re seeing a purely natural wonder but it turns out to be at least somewhat orchestrated.
It doesn’t take away the beauty of what you’re looking at, but it does take away some of the feeling behind that beauty if that makes sense.
Because you think you’re seeing a purely natural wonder but it turns out to be at least somewhat orchestrated.
I mean, it is still a natural wonder, same as it was.
All we did was make it so we can move the water to one side so we can take a look / work on maintaining the natural wonder, it’s not like we dug out the channels and created those 3 waterfalls
The beauty of something shouldn’t be affected at all by the insanely hardcore engineering it takes to maintain said beauty. If it does for you I’d recommend therapy cuz literally every natural wonder will be ruined for you if that’s the case cuz they all get maintained
Dude, you asked me why and I told you why. I’m sorry you don’t care for why I was mildly disappointed but that was still I was mildly disappointed.
Suggesting I need therapy for that is just rude and unnecessary.
How is it orchestrated? What you see is what nature did. The water can be controlled somewhat because of engineering but it doesn’t change the features of the fall as nature made it
I’m not arguing against you, just not getting your perspective (which I’m just trying to understand)
If you can turn off the falls whenever you want, I’d call that orchestrated.
I mean, they put lights on with colours at night… And there is a whole boulevard built around them so you can see them better
Would you call that orchestrated?
Yes?
Ok, I think I get your point now!
Cheers!
Damn son, even waterfalls in China are fake? What isn’t fake in China?!
The Concentration Camps are real.
Uyghur genocide
I’m not saying china doesn’t have problems, but it’s this kind of attitude that sends us down the path of us vs them that I think is toxic and leads to nationalism.
I have no issue with people criticising things in other countries, just not be absolute about it.
There most certainly are many not fake things in China that are great. Friendly people, wonderful food, natural wonders (this and perhaps some others excepted, but still), beautiful villages etc.
Just as there are bad things too, historical and contemporary.
Only a sith deals in absolutes.
“Oh this is whack, the park authority/ Chinese government faking a waterfall? That’s pretty shit.” 👍 An opinion I think many could agree with and is a valid criticism.
“Everything in China is fake” 👎 No it isn’t.
Unfortunately lemmy is by and large pretty racist, and totally unable to handle any form of nuance. I don’t really know why people who consider themselves heroicly leftwing are like this but I think it’s because complexity is uncomfortable compared to just deciding you know it all and biewing the world as divided into teams of good vs evil.
I most meant it as a joke tbh
Now that we know how to build a water fall from scratch, it’s just a matter of time until the world record of the highest water fall will be in Saudi Arabia or Quatar…
“The world’s largest waterfall is fed by the world’s second-biggest pump. The world’s biggest pump is used for the air conditioning that keeps the surrounding forest at a pleasant 20°C cooler than natural temperatures.”
Not surprising, everything is fake in China. Have even seen China using green paint on plants and mountains…
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ehmmm, every city in every country I have heard of does something like this when an international event will take place.
Not saying the Chinese may not over do it… but this is common practice in the Western World as well
Did you actually watch the videos?
They were spraying the trees green because they were dead. Elsewhere they might power wash ground, and maybe replace broken windows in abandoned buildings so they look new, possibly do some weeding, but they’re not painting trees because the trees are not dead. If the trees are dead you’ve got a serious issue.
Brazil painted over their slum neighborhoods… Venezuela used to hang flower pots on every lamp post… Canada labeled a bunch of buildings as “green sustainable energy”… etc
Again, I am not saying China is no overdoing it… but the pearl clutching tone of the video seemed silly to me
Yep we all paint our dogs to look like pandas over here
Farisov who? We, the chinese government, have never heard of, not has there every been a user by the name of Farisov… Please go on about your day.
This was not on my bingo card.
Seems like that one youtube channel won the recent algorithm lottery.
But the TOURISM!
So Chinese!
