Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders

world.wng.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 146 posts

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#131

Post by teresonos »

ashleycole wrote: post #36
Sacho wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you(or anyone else) commits to this plan, consider that your point of view may not be shared by the chinese people themselves. Your activism may have a negative effect for a variety of reasons - the people you're trying to educate don't have the same values as you, and they don't really see American intervention into local affairs as benevolent and virtuous.

I'm honestly too scared to do it. Not because I worry I'll be known as the guy who got GitHub banned in China (presumably after the rest of the world had to suffer from the inaccessibility caused by DDOS attacks that would likely last weeks (I mean the DDOS would last weeks, not the inaccessibility)), but because I worry the Chinese government would retaliate on me. I agree that many Chinese don't share these values…

Assuming you are an American, you have people in your own country that don't have the same values as you.

Question 1: Since they have the same access as you to "truthful history" why are their values different?

Question 2: Do you believe you could change their perspectives by introducing them to additional historical information?

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#132

Post by teresonos »

nradov wrote: post #71
richardknop wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As previous poster I would advise against this. While your intentions might be good it is usually a bad idea to try to intervene in domestic affairs of another country. See Iraq/Iran/Libya/Egypt and other examples from Middle East. You might just anger the local population and fuel anti American sentiment. Plus also the point about Chinese people not necessarily sharing your western liberal values is a good one. It's…

Providing factual information to people is in no way intervening in the domestic affairs of another country.

But how you report the factual information is important.

For example, suppose a ship with 1000 people was sinking.

- 800 lives saved by swift action and heroic first responders.

- Botched government response results in 200 dead.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#133

Post by teresonos »

stale2002 wrote: post #42
richardknop wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As previous poster I would advise against this. While your intentions might be good it is usually a bad idea to try to intervene in domestic affairs of another country. See Iraq/Iran/Libya/Egypt and other examples from Middle East. You might just anger the local population and fuel anti American sentiment. Plus also the point about Chinese people not necessarily sharing your western liberal values is a good one. It's…

What's China gonna do about it? If someone lives in America, then they have nothing to worry about. China can go ban github or something if they get upset over "foreign intervention". Then they will suffer all the economic damages that comes from that. The reason to do something like this is PRECISELY because it makes those who do not support "western liberal values" upset.

The US can extradite foreign citizens for committing crimes against American interests. Whose to say that China can't do the same one day?

Maybe the US would never agree, but imagine you are vacationing in some country that has good relations with China.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#134

Post by stevenwoo »

alexasmyths wrote: post #56
angry_octet wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a modern re-interpretation of inter-state conflict. In the past it was widely accepted that states could resolve disputes via war. By that standard, the UK could indeed keep HK indefinitely. A post-WWI agreement, called the Kellog-Briand Pact, sets the state for multilaterism, and outlaws war for conquest. This later develops into non-recognition of illegal conquests, war crimes, etc. So, in contrast to HK, T…

" But at the moment China is too rich, and Tibet to inconsequential, " This is it. When I was in Cali 1997-2003 - 'Tibet' was all the rage. Hollywood, popular opinion, documentaries etc. etc.. Then about the mid-2000s', 'Tibet' was snuffed out as a 'popular concern'. There were quite a number of big business people/CEO's whispering about Tibet as a 'cause' - but they shut up pretty quick. China has very effectively d…

I feel it's unjust what happened to Tibet since 1950 but practically speaking, what can anybody outside do?

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#135

Post by ashleycole »

teresonos wrote: post #131
ashleycole wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly too scared to do it. Not because I worry I'll be known as the guy who got GitHub banned in China (presumably after the rest of the world had to suffer from the inaccessibility caused by DDOS attacks that would likely last weeks (I mean the DDOS would last weeks, not the inaccessibility)), but because I worry the Chinese government would retaliate on me. I agree that many Chinese don't share these values…

Assuming you are an American, you have people in your own country that don't have the same values as you. Question 1: Since they have the same access as you to "truthful history" why are their values different? Question 2: Do you believe you could change their perspectives by introducing them to additional historical information?

I believe everyone deserve access to factual information and history, and it deeply saddens me when people abuse their power to suppress information, rewrite history, brainwash people, etc. China is not the only offender, but I'd say that they are the most dangerous one, and they even abuse their power to force other nations to submit themselves to their tyranny.

Everyone is unique, have different ideas, beliefs and thinking capabilities. It's only natural that, as such, people will process and respond to the same content in different ways.

I do believe that many Chinese people would form drastically different opinions if they had access to factual information. That being said, I must admit that my personal motivation would be less about helping the Chinese people, and more about attempting to limit China's power.

However, as I also mentioned in the other post, I'm not brave enough to even attempt to execute this idea. It's also important to anyone who might consider it that they would, if successful, endanger the life of themselves and their loved ones.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#136

Post by vetinari »

barry-cotter wrote: post #118
vetinari wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They guaranteed the indivisibility and independence of Cyprus and did nothing when the Greeks invaded, Turks, not Greeks > they guaranteed Ukraine’s borders along with Russia and the USA The Ukraine situation has much more nuance than you give credit for. > and never trust the U.K. or USA. As history shows, every superpower has interests, not friends.

You’re right, the Turks invaded before the Greeks managed to do so. I suppose the U.K. might have been the closest to sincere of the signatories to the Treaty of Guarantee. Let it be noted that the Turkish invasion was a response to a Greek government backed coup of the Cypriot government. Fuck nuance. Never give up your nukes and never trust anyone for your vital interests.

See? Even Cyprus has nuance :)

The nukes in Ukraine were not Ukrainian - they were Soviet. Ukraine had no knowledge and resources to maintain them in usable state, they would simply expire anyway. So at least someone made a quick buck on that. This episode actually sums up behaviour of Ukraine's politicians in their 25 years of existence - whatever can be sold, will be sold, consequences for your co-citizens be damned. Ukraine as a state has no interests, vital or not - only politicians have.

On the other hand, do you wonder why North Korea wants nukes?

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#137

Post by barry-cotter »

vetinari wrote: post #136
barry-cotter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right, the Turks invaded before the Greeks managed to do so. I suppose the U.K. might have been the closest to sincere of the signatories to the Treaty of Guarantee. Let it be noted that the Turkish invasion was a response to a Greek government backed coup of the Cypriot government. Fuck nuance. Never give up your nukes and never trust anyone for your vital interests.

See? Even Cyprus has nuance :) The nukes in Ukraine were not Ukrainian - they were Soviet. Ukraine had no knowledge and resources to maintain them in usable state, they would simply expire anyway. So at least someone made a quick buck on that. This episode actually sums up behaviour of Ukraine's politicians in their 25 years of existence - whatever can be sold, will be sold, consequences for your co-citizens be damne…

I don’t know whether Ukraine or Kazakhstan was the second largest of the Soviet republics but I would be very, very surprised if given their population they could not have at minimum cannibalised the Soviet nukes to build a domestic Ukrainian deterrent.

I don’t wonder why North Korea wants nukes. I know why. Iraq, Libya, Iran. Compare and contrast.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#138

Post by teresonos »

ashleycole wrote: post #135
teresonos wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you are an American, you have people in your own country that don't have the same values as you. Question 1: Since they have the same access as you to "truthful history" why are their values different? Question 2: Do you believe you could change their perspectives by introducing them to additional historical information?

I believe everyone deserve access to factual information and history, and it deeply saddens me when people abuse their power to suppress information, rewrite history, brainwash people, etc. China is not the only offender, but I'd say that they are the most dangerous one, and they even abuse their power to force other nations to submit themselves to their tyranny. Everyone is unique, have different ideas, beliefs and…

Thank you for taking the time to respond. The problem is that "factual information" can have a narrative that changes how events are interpreted [1].

An additional question: suppose you could limit the power of the alt-right, neo-nazies, and other racist agitators by limiting the flow of information.

Would also be against that?

1. http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/22535/both-china-and-west-...

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#139

Post by dilemma »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #114
dilemma wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have you done to spread the word about Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States?

Why, if he wants to do one thing, do you pretend that he has to do everything?

I don't. I'm merely asking for consistency.

Re: The jailing of Hong Kong’s young pro-democracy leaders 

#140

Post by yahna »

fatjokes wrote: post #87

The people of Hong Kong are hardly winning supporters within China. Much is made of the disdain that Hong Kong people have for Chinese mainlanders, but less is mentioned that it is equally true in reverse. There is a commonly held belief (which I haven't researched and thus don't know if true or not) that they didn't make nearly as much of a ruckus when they were under British colonial rule, when they were de facto s…

Oh look, top post about a story where China is taking pro-democracy political prisoners is defending China.

Why am I not surprised.

Post reply on HN