I found that comment a bit bizarre, too, as an American.
Many (most?) people in America simply don’t care about this or have any general curiosity about the world outside of them. America is the land of fast food and unsustainable cheap beef; we have a president that denies climate change, so it’s no wonder that there is simply no interest in understanding sustainable fishing by a large portion of the population, regardless of which country is succeeding at it.
That is much different than some kind of conspiracy like that post implied. I think it’s actually worse than a conspiracy because it shows widespread ignorance and no desire to seek out the information or analyze the food we eat and it’s impact on the environment. America doesn’t need a conspiracy to hide this, they won’t seek it out anyway.
Steve Jobs once said that when he was young, he was convinced that most TV was a conspiracy to make people stupid; but when he got older, he realized the truth was much worse: TV is just giving people what they want.
China today is in many ways very much like the U.S. in the middle of the 20th Century. New technologies and markets are creating rapid, wide-spread growth in living standards. At the same time, government and media encourage a culture of national pride bordering on paranoia, combined with intense pressure to conform. The U.S. grew out of it and I hope China does too.
Of course Americans aren't in general interested in fish farms. Most Chinese are equally unlikely to know anything about their country's aquaculture development (not to mention sustainable ones). I don't believe the sarcasm is literally aimed at people's ignorance, but more at prevailing general notions (and closed-mindedness) about anything China related. The writer has a Ph.D. from University of Cambridge and still lives in Cambridge. He is entitled to his opinion of what he thinks as biases in the Western media. To me the "biases" much more reflect what the media think that their readers would like to read and believe than a conspiracy to "mislead" their readers.
Americans work longer hours and save less than most other developed nations. Plus they don’t have extensive social safety nets. If you’re struggling to get by it’s hard to be curious about the world. Also the country is ginormous.
For income, one interesting metric would be the distribution. How much do most people make?
Because the US is also a developed country where 15$ an hour with pretty much no coverage is considered "good" in some parts (ie good enough to work as a Facebook content moderator rather than making Big Macs at the local McDonald's)
Edit: I might be a bit rusty on US social safety net & health benefits
Many (most?) people in America simply don’t care about this or have any general curiosity about the world outside of them. America is the land of fast food and unsustainable cheap beef; we have a president that denies climate change, so it’s no wonder that there is simply no interest in understanding sustainable fishing by a large portion of the population, regardless of which country is succeeding at it.
That is much different than some kind of conspiracy like that post implied. I think it’s actually worse than a conspiracy because it shows widespread ignorance and no desire to seek out the information or analyze the food we eat and it’s impact on the environment. America doesn’t need a conspiracy to hide this, they won’t seek it out anyway.