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A Walk in Hong Kong

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Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#301

Post by thaumasiotes »

spectramax wrote: post #61
TASMebWdhWc9NeA wrote: post #51

I am in Verona (Italy) at this time, and I'm in a hotel where some tourists from Shanghai happen to be as well. I'm alone, so I hang out in the lobby a lot. I just engaged in some small talk with some of those tourists, and the discussion somehow shifted to the Hong Kong protests. Basically what they sad is that western culture in Hong Kong clashes with the chinese culture. They don't seem to say that the chinese way…

Let’s replace China with X so there is no xenophobic rebuttals. X is an authoritarian regime that has no rule of law, president has self declared perpetual status in the office, piracy is rampant, no respect for privacy of others, there is an app called ourchat that is effectively owned by the government and is increasing becoming a necessity, no media let alone any kind of investigative journalism especially against…

> An eagle in the world of doves can kill a lot of doves and have short term evolutionary imbalance. But soon, the marginal cost of turning into an eagle is so small so there are new eagles popping up in the population all of a sudden.

This looks like a reference to the Hawk-Dove game. For those who haven't heard of it:

You have a population of two groups, hawks and doves. When they come into conflict (say, over a source of food), two doves will spend a lot of time staring each other down (each incurring a minor fitness penalty), and two hawks will fight (each incurring a major fitness penalty), but a dove facing a hawk will immediately surrender, incurring no penalty at all.

Depending on the amounts involved, there is a percentage of hawks which maximizes the total benefit enjoyed by the population, and that percentage is more than zero. A few hawks save a lot of doves time they could spend doing more productive things.

What I find interesting about this game is how it interacts with some popular notions of government. A traditional utilitarian perspective is that the purpose of government is to maximize the welfare of society. As applied to the hawk-dove game, that would mean the government should anoint some people "hawks" and set rules that mean a hawk in conflict with a dove automatically wins, regardless of the merits of the conflict. This is a pretty traditional aristocracy setup. It would then be the business of the government to make sure the number of nobles stayed within an appropriate margin relative to the number of commoners.

But another very popular model of the government says that it should make sure everything is fair. ("All men are equal before the law.") That would mean abolishing the concept of the nobility's inherent superiority to commoners, ensuring that everyone is a dove. It sounds better, but in terms of societal welfare, it's worse.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#302

Post by germanier »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #297
germanier wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court's argument does not hinge on the "widely publicized" nature but on her "legitimate expectation of protection of and respect for their private life". If you still want to argue semantics, I would like to quote the ECHR again ( P.G. and J.H. v. The United Kingdom ) > There are a number of elements relevant to a consideration of whether a person’s private life is concerned by measures effected outside a person…

Except this is not semantics at all. It specifically mentions publication. Again, limits to publication is not the same as an expectation of privacy, which cannot exist in a public place. This is why invoking privacy when arguing against surveillance in public places is nonsensical. I note that while my main point was the difference between privacy vs. anonymity people argue on a detail...

Just because a case involves publication it does not mean that legal concepts developed therein only apply to that. Anyhow, the quoted P.G. and J.H. vs The United Kingdom in my last reply specifically deals with surveillance. You may find the court's arguments nonsensical but you can't stand by the fact that this has never been a concept anywhere. It certainly is a concept there. I even quoted you the court's assessment that when talking about public places you have to consider their "reasonable expectations as to privacy".

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#303

Post by justicezyx »

whoevercares wrote: post #149
xkgt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

//Basically what they sad is that western culture in Hong Kong clashes with the Chinese culture. This is exactly a regurgitation of the propaganda by CCP. They blamed western influence, education and cultural whitewashing of HK Chinese as the reason for the current protests and their citizens believe it sincerely. They conveniently overlook the crux of the protest, which is to ask for universal suffrage. Even for a w…

Of course, your friends living in HK probably come from the “upper” middle class from China (depends on how old they are, ironically the younger the less likely they arise from lower class). For them it’s dreadful to imagine allowing the vast larger rural and under-educated population to make a decision. I agree though HK people should have a choice Since the scale is too small and people are mostly highly educated

> allowing the vast larger rural and under-educated population to make a decision.

Culture Revolution PTSD?

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#304

Post by RugnirViking »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #294
rqs wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "lose face" you mean display of weakness, then you probably right. The government don't actually care about face here, they only care about outcome. In mainland, people sees the government as the ruler. They are not there to serve you, they are there to manage you. They never make mistake, and you must follow their lead. The government needs Hongkong, and hey need Hongkong under control, just like the rest of C…

> In mainland, people sees the government as the ruler. They are not there to serve you, they are there to manage you. They never make mistake, and you must follow their lead. Mostly right, but there is no sentiment on the mainland that the government never makes mistakes. Quite the opposite.

I would be interested to hear more on this topic. What kind of things do mainland chinese think is bad about their government. What would they change?

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#305

Post by [deleted] »

gnulinux wrote: post #288
HNcantBtrustd wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last 2000 years, much of human progress came in the form of freedom. In recent times it seems there is a pushback towards less.

This is absolutely not true, only this decade we've been in a momentum for worldwide progress for LGBT rights, many states now have more liberal drug laws. Moreover, I cannot think of one thing that we were free to do a few decades ago and we're restricted to do now. There is an alarmist rhetoric in libertarian community (especially r/libertarian et al) that the West is keep getting more authoritarian, whereas the fa…

[deleted]

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#306

Post by spacehunt »

tombh wrote: post #115
TASMebWdhWc9NeA wrote: post #51

I am in Verona (Italy) at this time, and I'm in a hotel where some tourists from Shanghai happen to be as well. I'm alone, so I hang out in the lobby a lot. I just engaged in some small talk with some of those tourists, and the discussion somehow shifted to the Hong Kong protests. Basically what they sad is that western culture in Hong Kong clashes with the chinese culture. They don't seem to say that the chinese way…

If anyone else is open to the other point of view, I could use some help. I'm struggling a lot at the moment with how little relevance seems to be given to how significant HK was in defining China's modern identity. How many people actually know how HK came into being? That the supposedly democratic state of Britain who had already violently colonised India, used Indian land and serfs to grow 1000s of tons of Opium t…

> it didn't naturally come to its anti-CCP ideology through an organic, internal and independent process.

I think you give Hong Kongers too little credit here. In fact, by 1997 many of those who hated China already voted with their feet and emigrated elsewhere; most of those who remained had high hopes that China will uphold its end of the bargain and become a well-behaved superpower.

The real irony is that the much more frequent interactions with mainland China since the handover have shown HKers the true colours of the CCP -- a thuggish regime, with zero regard to anything other than their hold to power. You can look up the number of HK people who identify as "Chinese" over the years for some hints.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#307

Post by jefurii »

empath75 wrote: post #158
xkgt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

//Basically what they sad is that western culture in Hong Kong clashes with the Chinese culture. This is exactly a regurgitation of the propaganda by CCP. They blamed western influence, education and cultural whitewashing of HK Chinese as the reason for the current protests and their citizens believe it sincerely. They conveniently overlook the crux of the protest, which is to ask for universal suffrage. Even for a w…

After the 2016 election I almost feel the same about letting the public vote.

2016 went the way it did because of the electoral college - the winner of the election actually lost the popular vote.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#309

Post by yostrovs »

albertzeyer wrote: post #117
yostrovs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here on HN, how developed a country is is directly proportional to the quality of train service in that country. Other considerations are too marginal to matter.

Public transport / trains is just one of the most obvious aspects. Of course there are others (public schools, public universities, quality of streets, public healthcare, general safety, food quality, nature, many many more ...). Often they are very much correlated, though. Do I understand you right that you claim that while train service is bad in USA, there are other things / aspects which are better developed in U…

I have two cars between my wife and I. In Europe we'd have much smaller cars, but the train is there. But I'd rather travel point to point, on my schedule, even to places the train doesn't run. And I'd like to bring our kayaks with us. I feel that from my point of view, cars are superior and having a train around wouldn't improve our quality of life.

Re: A Walk in Hong Kong

#310

Post by flagfeedingusa1 »

rhinovshippo wrote: post #176
3131s wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea that "saving face" is uniquely central to Asian cultures is complete nonsense. It's a common metaphor in Asian languages, that's it -- the desire to avoid embarrassment is an absolutely universal human trait.

"face" is the word one uses when one wants to put a negative spin on it. It, along with "kowtow", are very much dog-whistles for a certain crowd. Have you ever laughed at a joke even though you don't find it funny, because the teller made a great effort telling it and you shudders to think how you would feel if your interlocutor exhibited completely no reaction? If the answer is yes, the concept is as much operative…

What is the obsession with calling everything a "dog whistle". I'd love for people to just stop using that term as it's so emotionally manipulative and nonsensical it should just be thrown in to the garbage.
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