A Walk in Hong Kong • Hacker News Board

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#21

Post by hos234 » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 7:59 AM UTC

> The protesters learned in 2014 that having leaders was a weakness. Once the leadership was arrested, the heart went out of the occupy movement, and it lost momentum. So in 2019, there is no leadership at all.

This part seems a little naive to me. Protests that have produced outcomes (in atleast a power shift) have all had Leaders and new political parties forming. Whether in India after the anticorruption/gangrape protests in 2013-14, Greece economic crisis in 2008, Right wing rise all across Europe thanks to the immigration issues. All these movements have had leaders who got arrested multiple times.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#22

Post by smcl » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:00 AM UTC

abcdefghijklmn3 wrote: post #15

Fu Guohao was severely beaten by black shirt protesters at the airport for allegedly being a mainland spy and a police plant. Why did the protesters do that? Why did they take away his freedoms? Why do these current narratives gloss over that fact? You can accuse me of whataboutism, and I can accuse you of indulging in propaganda. I can't imagine getting away with shining a laser in a police officer's eyes, let alone…

This comment is by a green-name account, isn't responding to anyone in particular and has that online-commenter-army feel to it.

Genuine question for HN: what's the right term for this sort of comment, or commenter?

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#23

Post by wgx » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:00 AM UTC

Pastebin copy: https://pastebin.com/gsiAqu4u

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#24

Post by Joakal » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:02 AM UTC

abcdefghijklmn3 wrote: post #15

Fu Guohao was severely beaten by black shirt protesters at the airport for allegedly being a mainland spy and a police plant. Why did the protesters do that? Why did they take away his freedoms? Why do these current narratives gloss over that fact? You can accuse me of whataboutism, and I can accuse you of indulging in propaganda. I can't imagine getting away with shining a laser in a police officer's eyes, let alone…

China has a reputation of dealing with things privately, so there's a lot of paranoia and worry from protestors.

Second point, the escalation by protestors, the government won't fulfill the protestor's demands. I can only say this by John F. Kennedy: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#25

Post by mytailorisrich » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:06 AM UTC

smcl wrote: post #22

abcdefghijklmn3 wrote: post #15

Fu Guohao was severely beaten by black shirt protesters at the airport for allegedly being a mainland spy and a police plant. Why did the protesters do that? Why did they take away his freedoms? Why do these current narratives gloss over that fact? You can accuse me of whataboutism, and I can accuse you of indulging in propaganda. I can't imagine getting away with shining a laser in a police officer's eyes, let alone…

This comment is by a green-name account, isn't responding to anyone in particular and has that online-commenter-army feel to it. Genuine question for HN: what's the right term for this sort of comment, or commenter?

If political submissions are accepted then we should also accept comments expressing opposite and contradicting views on the issue instead of trying to suppress them by labeling them as "bots", "online-commenter-army", etc.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#26

Post by hrktb » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:07 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #12

This has probably given me more insight in the protests than any news article I’ve read so far. Why is it so hard to find a decent source for what is happening?

Fundamentally it is not what western media think as “news”.

It is long, ultra detailed, first person, and doesn’t cover the central point covered by other news outlets.

If a NYT editor was reading this it would cut it down to a fifth of what it is, have it reexplain the 5 demands, give a clearer political positioning etc.

We had that with french protests, standard news covering was cut so it was very digestible and non thought provoking (ton of focus on politics, the fights, injuries and non participant’s reactions to the events), it felt like most places removed bits that could be too interesting.

We need both obviously, and I also share your view that more often than not when big event occurs the news coverage doesn’t help much to give us a grip about what’s actually happening.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#27

Post by avip » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:07 AM UTC

Interesting to contrast this with popular demonstrations in US or France. No windows broken? Burnt city infrastructure? No beaten up police? All so quiet.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#28

Post by roca » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:08 AM UTC

kzzzznot wrote: post #10

_petronius wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is some serious “too interested in seeing if you could, and not stopping to wonder if you should” content. What possible positives are there in exploring how to de-anonymize people whose life and freedom requires anonymity, and who are fighting the good fight?

But this is the point of security research, to find vulnerabilities so they can be fixed.

In practice the point of most security research is: get the paper published and give the talk, or sell the zero-days, or use them yourself, and then move on to the next thing.

The actual non-sexy defensive work of cleaning up bugs and implementing countermeasures, i.e. the real work on improving security instead of making it worse, is mostly done by rank-and-file software and hardware developers whose names are never known.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#29

Post by nbevans » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:09 AM UTC

"All that prelude is to say, coming in to the Hong Kong protests from a less developed country like the United States is disorienting."

This sentence got me hooked. It must be so alien to the average American that there are more developed countries/cities out there.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#30

Post by lawrenceyan » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 8:09 AM UTC

spyckie2 wrote: post #19

This piece is quite accurate - it really makes you feel like you're in Hong Kong during the protests. References aside, as a US citizen in Hong Kong there are some things that I respect immensely and some things that really get on my nerves about HK. I greatly respect the people and the cause. It reminds me of that one poem - > Do not go gentle into that good night. > Rage, rage against the dying of the light. The pe…

Growing up in the suburbs of California, I never really understood just how central the concept of face was in Asian society until visiting China and seeing it for myself.

Over time I’ve come to realize that many of these social concepts exists in some form or another across all cultures, likely implicit in some part to the human condition, but it still surprises me to this day just how entrenched it still is in certain areas.

I’ve always been personally curious as to what the causes of these divergences in culture between different societies are. There must be some inciting reason that such a stark difference in communication exists.