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Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

reuters.com

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Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#21

Post by pjc50 »

pbourke wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports are businesses. Businesses, as everyone reminds each other constantly on here, are kind of obliged to seek money first and morality second. Unfortunate, but endemic to the system. In the case of football, that means taking money from dictatorships to host the World Cup in unbearably hot countries in stadia built by slave labour. Why should basketball be any different? It's not as if American sport has covered…

> host the World Cup Isn’t that put on by the ostensibly non-profit FIFA? It seems closer to the Olympic Games to this very casual observer.

FIFA is mostly a bribe-laundering organisation for the profit of individual staff. Certainly in the UK the top teams are for-profit competing in the for-profit Premier League, and as a result there's a lot of money from either oligarchs or gulf state monarchs. The huge "Emirates" stadium, for example.

Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#22

Post by PavlovsCat »

pjc50 wrote: post #16
alkonaut wrote: post #3

Wait, a person expressed views in favour of democracy and felt he had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? Here's how this works: we express views that anger dictatorships, and if there is even a minute chance that your business tanks because of it - then you were in the wrong market or had the wrong owners. The right thing to do here for the NBA would be to stand behind this tweet. Corporations need…

Sports are businesses. Businesses, as everyone reminds each other constantly on here, are kind of obliged to seek money first and morality second. Unfortunate, but endemic to the system. In the case of football, that means taking money from dictatorships to host the World Cup in unbearably hot countries in stadia built by slave labour. Why should basketball be any different? It's not as if American sport has covered…

> It's not as if American sport has covered itself in glory in its response to athletes making the smallest, most respectful domestic protest possible about police violence.

What stands on the other side of the equation here aren't the villains and misdeeds elsewhere, it's the protesters in Hong Kong, and the reasons why they protest. Not all of them saints, all the time, but generally, I would very much sum them up as both innocent and correct in their demands, which so far have only been met with violence, in some cases extreme violence. In the last weeks I've seen so many videos of police attacking people basically for "fun" e.g. police throwing a garbage bin onto protesters from a bridge, just throwing tear gas at idle and unsuspecting journalists with no protesters in sight, and so on. Even American cops wouldn't remotely dream of acting like that, not sustainedly and while being surrounded by journalists.

Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#23

Post by wallace_f »

pjc50 wrote: post #16
alkonaut wrote: post #3

Wait, a person expressed views in favour of democracy and felt he had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? Here's how this works: we express views that anger dictatorships, and if there is even a minute chance that your business tanks because of it - then you were in the wrong market or had the wrong owners. The right thing to do here for the NBA would be to stand behind this tweet. Corporations need…

Sports are businesses. Businesses, as everyone reminds each other constantly on here, are kind of obliged to seek money first and morality second. Unfortunate, but endemic to the system. In the case of football, that means taking money from dictatorships to host the World Cup in unbearably hot countries in stadia built by slave labour. Why should basketball be any different? It's not as if American sport has covered…

Money is just a form of social credit. When governments, monopolies and all other forms of violent coercion are out of the equation, money is just something people voluntarily give to each other in exchange for goods or services.

What I mean is, your comment reads like you are writing an indictment about our "system," with its problems being money, markets; but then you go on to support this with problems of slave labor, tyrannical regimes.

I see this pattern in comments every day on social media all the time. Criticisizing money, voluntary exchange, markets--what is economic liberalism--but then supporting their criticism with problems of the exact opposite, authoritarianism.

Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#24

Post by GooglyMoogly »

wei_jok wrote: post #11
GooglyMoogly wrote: post #7

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176976

Thanks. I couldn't read the WSJ article (paywall) so submitted the reuters article here.

When I google the WSJ article URL, and click the link from the search results, I don't get a paywall.

Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#25

Post by mytailorisrich »

simonh wrote: post #20
alkonaut wrote: post #3

Wait, a person expressed views in favour of democracy and felt he had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? Here's how this works: we express views that anger dictatorships, and if there is even a minute chance that your business tanks because of it - then you were in the wrong market or had the wrong owners. The right thing to do here for the NBA would be to stand behind this tweet. Corporations need…

The problem isn't with angering dictatorships, it's about angering a lot of ordinary Chinese mainlanders who have been convinced that the HK protesters are traitors. This is a serious problem, because it's simply not possible to persuade them otherwise, because the channels to do so are censored by the Chinese government. It's a crazily scary issue. My family is half Chinese and my niece came over from China this sum…

It's not a question of censorship. This is caused by the protesters themselves (at least some of them).

I'm in the UK and the Chinese people I know only need to watch the reporting on the BBC to be convinced that a lot of protesters are anti-China and potentially propped up by foreign forces: Violence, attacks on government buildings, attacks on the Chinese flag, flying foreign flags, calling on the Brits and Americans to intervene, etc.

The actions of these protesters have ensured that the Chinese government cannot do anything but standing firm.

I don't know what Chinese TVs show to the public on the mainland, but if they show what the BBC shows then the people can only be outraged and absolutely against the protesters.

The way these protesters behave has completely drowned any message regarding democracy, which the Chinese public might actually be receptive to, though indeed that would be censored by the media on the mainland. That's another reason not to hand the government the stick to beat them with.

Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#27

Post by missosoup »

simonh wrote: post #20
alkonaut wrote: post #3

Wait, a person expressed views in favour of democracy and felt he had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? Here's how this works: we express views that anger dictatorships, and if there is even a minute chance that your business tanks because of it - then you were in the wrong market or had the wrong owners. The right thing to do here for the NBA would be to stand behind this tweet. Corporations need…

The problem isn't with angering dictatorships, it's about angering a lot of ordinary Chinese mainlanders who have been convinced that the HK protesters are traitors. This is a serious problem, because it's simply not possible to persuade them otherwise, because the channels to do so are censored by the Chinese government. It's a crazily scary issue. My family is half Chinese and my niece came over from China this sum…

> As a result mainland Chinese see any support for the HK protesters as being a direct attack against the identity, nationality and integrity of China and Chinese people.

While that's true, this is not the driving force behind China's foreign influence in situations like this. There is a far more centralised top-down movement to enact CCP influence outside of China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Front_Work_Department

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese_Affairs_Offic...

Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#28

Post by sagichmal »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #25
simonh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't with angering dictatorships, it's about angering a lot of ordinary Chinese mainlanders who have been convinced that the HK protesters are traitors. This is a serious problem, because it's simply not possible to persuade them otherwise, because the channels to do so are censored by the Chinese government. It's a crazily scary issue. My family is half Chinese and my niece came over from China this sum…

It's not a question of censorship. This is caused by the protesters themselves (at least some of them). I'm in the UK and the Chinese people I know only need to watch the reporting on the BBC to be convinced that a lot of protesters are anti-China and potentially propped up by foreign forces: Violence, attacks on government buildings, attacks on the Chinese flag, flying foreign flags, calling on the Brits and America…

Lol.

Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#29

Post by PavlovsCat »

simonh wrote: post #20
alkonaut wrote: post #3

Wait, a person expressed views in favour of democracy and felt he had to backtrack because of pressure from a dictatorship? Here's how this works: we express views that anger dictatorships, and if there is even a minute chance that your business tanks because of it - then you were in the wrong market or had the wrong owners. The right thing to do here for the NBA would be to stand behind this tweet. Corporations need…

The problem isn't with angering dictatorships, it's about angering a lot of ordinary Chinese mainlanders who have been convinced that the HK protesters are traitors. This is a serious problem, because it's simply not possible to persuade them otherwise, because the channels to do so are censored by the Chinese government. It's a crazily scary issue. My family is half Chinese and my niece came over from China this sum…

> It's tough, but I think the best approach, if you do want to express support for HK, is instead to focus on the Censorship of the issues by the Chinese government.

So basically we can't talk about things to Westerners like we would, because Chinese citizens might overhear on the web and freak out? And not complying is us interfering?

What if suggesting so would get you ostracized in democracies? If you had to pick one or the other?

> unless it's handled very carefully it can make the situation worse, not better.

The violence against the protesters has been constantly ramping up, for months. It's not like the other side fails to understand the demands, they simply will ignore and brutalize the people until they stop protesting. Do you think there will be new information that will change things?

> After all, an end in terror is preferable to terror without end.

-- Leaflet #2 of the White Rose

There might be no clean and neat way out of this, but none of the people you are asking to provide one wanted or started any of this. That burden is not on them. They came across an aggressor and a victim, and it's not just a misunderstanding that can be cleared up without stepping on anyone's toes. You either step on the toes of victim or aggressor -- since you are already aware of the deed, being neutral isn't an option.

Yeah, it's not fun, but it doesn't become more fun by avoiding what cannot be avoided. And downvoting within 1 minute without reply just proves how important this is, and how long we have allowed ourselves to slip and prefer distortion and silencing over intellectually honest argument, even about uncomfortable things.

Re: Houston Rockets general manager apologises for Hong Kong protest tweet

#30

Post by simonh »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #25
simonh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't with angering dictatorships, it's about angering a lot of ordinary Chinese mainlanders who have been convinced that the HK protesters are traitors. This is a serious problem, because it's simply not possible to persuade them otherwise, because the channels to do so are censored by the Chinese government. It's a crazily scary issue. My family is half Chinese and my niece came over from China this sum…

It's not a question of censorship. This is caused by the protesters themselves (at least some of them). I'm in the UK and the Chinese people I know only need to watch the reporting on the BBC to be convinced that a lot of protesters are anti-China and potentially propped up by foreign forces: Violence, attacks on government buildings, attacks on the Chinese flag, flying foreign flags, calling on the Brits and America…

>The actions of these protesters have ensured that the Chinese government cannot do anything but standing firm.

Standing firm on what though? Since hardly any Chinese people even know about the extradition law, what does standing firm on that achieve? It has zero relevance to the issue from a mainlander perspective, so conceding on it would have zero negative publicity impact. In fact none of the actual issues are visible to mainlanders at all.

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