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Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

theguardian.com

41–50 of 252 posts

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#41
Two things are true at the same time:

- Hong Kong's rule of law has disappeared;

- The books in question are written by pretty radical young revolutionaries.

Personally I am more concerned that libraries in Hong Kong seem to keep less and less books in the local version of Chinese and more books written in Simplified Chinese used in Mainland China.

It's like if you are in California and suddenly half of the books in your library are in Russian instead of English or Spanish.

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#42
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Russian, seeing how Russians perceive things, which I imagine is something of an analogue: They don't believe our internal propaganda. That's why Russia and the like spend so much time hyping up where we don't live up to our ideals - it lets them sell the line that we're just as bad, just as corrupt, just as etc. but we either mouth the propaganda trying to get by, or we're dumb/gullible enough to fall for the p…

interesting, but Russians afaik don't get schooled overseas too much, like so many Chinese students spend years at overseas uni's, you'd think some of it would seep in. If not I'm very disappointed with the universities. Edit: a world without dissent seems so ... pointless

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Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do things that benefit them, and avoid doing things that harm them. They motivate their selfish actions, to others but also to themselves (Motivated Reasoning) with noble sounding arguments. Our brains are very good at coming up with those. Once you understand and accept this, you can process the world on a higher level. The hardest part is seeing when you do this yourself.

Let's stop with the performative cynicism on HN. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that (mentally healthy) humans are pretty capable of empathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy > They motivate their selfish actions, to others but also to themselves (Motivated Reasoning) with noble sounding arguments You are claiming that selfishness is the only driver but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning…

I agree that humans have a lot of empathy, and that selfishness is far from our only driver.

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#44
post #37

How is it that many Chinese students are schooled in the west, and have access to all these books and thoughts, but then they don't exist when they go back home. There must be some significant cognitive dissonance between the two situations. I don't see how they can keep a lid on this long term.

I imagine the effects will take some time to filter through, but yeah, a generation of the Chinese elite being schooled in the west seems likely to have a pretty profound impact. I suppose this is part of the west's gambit in being so open to international students generally. On the other hand, the Chinese community at universities in my city includes many who don't speak English or try to interact with the locals. T…

yes, many have commented here to that they keep to their own groups in general, and the language barrier is high.

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#45

How is it that many Chinese students are schooled in the west, and have access to all these books and thoughts, but then they don't exist when they go back home. There must be some significant cognitive dissonance between the two situations. I don't see how they can keep a lid on this long term.

I once asked a Chinese citizen I was working with this question. The response was that it's important for the Chinese government to censor the internet for the masses because the masses are dumb and will believe anything they read. However it wasn't important to censor the internet for smart people because smart people aren't susceptible to harmful information. So when he was in the west on uncensored internet or at…

Western societies believe freedom of speech is the root of all that is good in the world. Healthy discussion leads to good governance leads to wealth, power, and status.

China believes freedom of speech is just a leaf on the tree. Wealth, power, and status are the roots of a society that can weather the chaos of dissent. Dissent is like a source of entertainment to keep people distracted to be sprinkled strategically where people are too well fed to uproot the system. So of course wealthy and tech savvy costal urbanites are given more leeway on censorship than a poor farmer in the interior.

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#46

How is it that many Chinese students are schooled in the west, and have access to all these books and thoughts, but then they don't exist when they go back home. There must be some significant cognitive dissonance between the two situations. I don't see how they can keep a lid on this long term.

I once asked a Chinese citizen I was working with this question. The response was that it's important for the Chinese government to censor the internet for the masses because the masses are dumb and will believe anything they read. However it wasn't important to censor the internet for smart people because smart people aren't susceptible to harmful information. So when he was in the west on uncensored internet or at…

ok wow, so brave new world, only the Alpha+ are allowed out. That won't go wrong.

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#47

How is it that many Chinese students are schooled in the west, and have access to all these books and thoughts, but then they don't exist when they go back home. There must be some significant cognitive dissonance between the two situations. I don't see how they can keep a lid on this long term.

I once asked a Chinese citizen I was working with this question. The response was that it's important for the Chinese government to censor the internet for the masses because the masses are dumb and will believe anything they read. However it wasn't important to censor the internet for smart people because smart people aren't susceptible to harmful information. So when he was in the west on uncensored internet or at…

It is true though !

Apply the same logic to the US.

Wouldn't it better to censor Fox ? since it has become Murdoch's personal propaganda machine.

All it has done is harm social cohesion.

It would be better to have Fox viewers go through some classes on critical thinking before allowing them to consume all sorts of Media that may be trying to manipulate them.

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#48
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not surprising at all. BLM is a neomarxist movement which is ideologically aligned with the CCP. The fact that all these companies are expressing support for BLM is absolutely terrifying and shows how much power this new neomarxist movement has.

I don't think wanting black people to not get regularly murdered by the police is marxism, per se. Neither is being against celebrating slavers etc. Claiming the CCP and BLM are on the same page would be comical if I wasn't so sure you were serious.

BLM is not a monolithic entity though, and is comprised of lots of groups pushing lots of agendas. e.g https://mobile.twitter.com/agavedelacalle/status/12691745749... .

I was lucky enough to read about china in university and read 3 different books about Mao for varying perspectives. What is happening in the US is strikingly similar to the cultural revolution. Making "anti progress" people kowotow to the revolution, taking away their means of livelihoods. Wait till these people start saying that anyone with a slightly different opinion than the revolution is a racist and needs to be "reeducatted", and long for a social credit system similar to china.

The CCP also didn't start with the goal of oppressing people. It started with the goal of ending century long oppression of chinese peasants at the hands of the ruling elites. If you read Mao's little red book, he even makes some arguments against censorship.

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#49
post #3

Isn't it surprising that Microsoft, Apple, Google, Netflix, Blizzard and others don't express their deep regret and support the people of Hong Kong? If they really stood by their values they would act in the same way as they did by supporting the BLM movement. It's just another proof that they only did that to get press coverage for being "benevolent" and not because they genuinely supported the people. Disgraceful.

The folks protesting in Hong Kong are not really aligned with the views of the US Democratic Party or left-wing activists in the US.

I think they are more aligned with the classical liberalism which doesn't seem to find much support these days.

Re: Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves

#50

How is it that many Chinese students are schooled in the west, and have access to all these books and thoughts, but then they don't exist when they go back home. There must be some significant cognitive dissonance between the two situations. I don't see how they can keep a lid on this long term.

It's hard to reconcile the words in a textbook that says an authoritarian society is doomed to fail, then go home and watch rice paddies turn to skyscrapers in a generation. In a competition between academia and the real world, the real world always wins out.
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