China's government is actually pretty good at getting things done

I think the difference is world building. In the stories you listed there's a sense that you're only seeing a tiny fragment of everything notable going on. History is being made by everyone concurrently.

In Avatar, you see everything notable. We don't care what's going on on Earth (they never hint anything), we don't care what's going on outside this one tribe, the only thing happening right now is the conflict on screen.

"Heat from fire"

But in the end, clown carton of eggs x in Z^+ | x = 0 mod 2 gas liquid solid

I'm assuming you mean that thing where people can imagine what another person feels?

I have a hypothesis: they do imagine what others feel, but they imagine it wrong. For instance, a transphobe might try to imagine what it's like to be trans, but the closest to that they can get is doing it for shits and giggles or for perverted reasons, so that's what they think it must be like.

Of course, most logical evidence would disprove that, but empathy (feelings) trump facts to some people.

We can't have tyranny of the majority, that's why we should give me (numerically a minority) veto powers so I can stop mob rule. By complete coincidence the current arrangement works well for me and I might veto everything that would interfere with that. This is true democracy!

Abstractions are great for covering up the details and letting you focus on more important stuff... until they don't work and cover up why they're not working.

god gave me gender dysphoria for the lolz

I don't know if you deliberately or accidentally missed the point. Sure, things can be made for men, but when everything's made for men that's a problem.

The people have to exit the portal at the same speed they enter, otherwise they'd have to be squished or something weird.

If 1cm of person enters in 1 second, 1cm of person needs to leave in that second, the only other options are that part of the person disappears or gets compressed to less than 1cm.

I'll never understand people who tell you you're being happy the wrong way.

You might not have a choice if they all decide to do it. Companies are actually kinda good at that kind of collective actions sometimes.