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

theguardian.com

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

#51

Post by iforgotpassword »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #12

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.

Because they see things from a completely different angle, different cultural background, and obviously pre-seeded with what the CCP wants them to see as the truth.

Because really, consider in how many ways the west does not practice what it preaches. Look at how big corporations abuse capitalism, work against customer rights through lobbying. Look at the whole "right to repair" debate. There is plenty of stuff you can pick out and primarily report on on Chinese news. For example, every time there is even just a small protest of black people somewhere in the US, you can be sure it's on CCTV.

Then consider that most Chinese students going overseas are from the big cities, often from families doing well. There are government programs that sponsor studying abroad for students from rural areas, but they make up for only a small share. So you have students from the big cities, living a modern and happy life. And they get here and see that in some areas of everyday convenience, we've already fallen behind. They see China making progress every day, while the west is stagnating, having a lot of obvious internal and structural problems. They see the most powerful country in the world lead by a crazy orange clown being the main source of entertainment on Twitter. Not the prime example for the pros of a democracy.

And then you show them all the stuff that's censored in China, and how the CCP is evil, and how you got freedom of speech and they don't, and they look at how everything is going well back home and just shrug.

So you might conclude they are just brainwashed and don't realize it, but they pretty much think the same about you. The image of China we get presented in mainstream media is horribly biased as well.

In general you need to realize that most people from most countries are pretty content with how things are going. Even though it's not perfect, it's what you've accepted as being normal, since you grew up with it.

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

#52

Post by luckylion »

hkt wrote: post #37
chadcmulligan wrote: post #12

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…

But it's the elite that is educated in the West. Much like Saudi Arabia's elite that spends time in Europe as diplomats (aka "party without needing to obey laws"), they are not the ones who suffer under the system, the elite usually is just fine with authoritarian systems, they stand to profit.

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

#53

Post by seganddr »

paganel wrote: post #18
baybal2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft, Apple, Google, Netflix, Blizzard Don't you think that C-levels of all of them were previously dying to get into China, and were ready to do anything? On my memory, Google's advisers were all over Kremlin, coaching the regime in "internet media operations" in 2005-2008, teaching them how to hound opposition online, and doing psyops style public opinion manipulation, while inventing silly lies about the na…

Any handy links for that Google-Russia story? It’s not that I don’t believe, because I do (IMO this is something that Google would have done) it’s just that I’m on mobile and am too lazy to search for those links myself.

I suggest that you read that account's post history before you believe their claims.

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

#54

Post by hkai »

eloff wrote: post #11

It was very clever of China to tighten their grip on Hong Kong while the world is distracted with the pandemic, and the US is further distracted with its own issues. Well played. I hope it backfires on them.

It seems so, although it's not like the world paid much attention to the mass imprisonment and "reeducation" of Kazakhs and Uyghurs for the crime of speaking a wrong language, praying to the wrong god or wearing the wrong style of beards.

Fuck those beard-wearing Xinjiang hipsters anyway, am I right guys?

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

#55

Post by Analemma_ »

hoophoop wrote: post #34
BurningFrog wrote: post #22

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…

Humans can have empathy. Publicly-traded corporations cannot.

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

#56

Post by baybal2 »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #26
arkades wrote: 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

> 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.

Don't you think that a big number of them go to the West with full knowledge of that?

Western education is still only affordable to a fraction of 1% of Chinese population, with many of them being CPC members themselves.

I had a curious case when I was studying in Canada: one very quiet girl, always wearing a tracksuit, always telling everybody her being a daughter of ordinary daylaborers who saved all their life to send her to the West.

She was one of few Chinese students we actually believed being who she claimed she was, and not a son/daughter of some elite, concealing family background. Then, by an accident, some son of a Chinese military officer outed her as a daughter of a 2 star general when he made advances on her.

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

#57

Post by jansan »

praptak wrote: post #19
jansan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you say about classic literature being banned from classrooms because people were unable to see the content in the context of the time it was written?

I see it as an order of magnitude less dangerous than censorship at the library level.

Here is an extensive list of frequently challenged and banned books

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks...

Some school libraries appear to be being very active on banning certain books.

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

#58

Post by hkai »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #12

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.

Oh, not just students. Most of my colleagues are ethnic Chinese folks who were born or raised in the West, schooled there and then they returned to China.

On a few occasions that I have a chance to talk politics with them, they says that democracy to them means gridlock, racism, Trump, Brexit, white supremacy.

They support the Singapore / China model because of the apparent stability, wealth, getting things done quickly, and various other reasons, such as feeling more "at home" among the Chinese community.

They still keep a UK/US passport though, just in case.

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

#59

Post by jpgreens »

hkt wrote: post #30
jpgreens wrote: post #25

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.

While your first two statements are true, they are a textbook example of a straw man argument. I did not say they are marxist because they don't want people murdered by the police. I also didn't say they're marxist because they're against celebrating slavers.

If you're willing to learn, you may want to look up what Patrisse Cullors has to say about her own BLM movement. I feel sorry that you think this is comical.

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

#60

Post by chadcmulligan »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #51
chadcmulligan wrote: post #12

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.

Because they see things from a completely different angle, different cultural background, and obviously pre-seeded with what the CCP wants them to see as the truth. Because really, consider in how many ways the west does not practice what it preaches. Look at how big corporations abuse capitalism, work against customer rights through lobbying. Look at the whole "right to repair" debate. There is plenty of stuff you c…

Yes, the orange man hasn't helped the argument, and yes I've noticed a lot of the press (Murdoch in particular) is producing a continuous stream of anti china sentiment lately. To many oligarchs are controlling too many conversations I'm feeling lately. I can imagine many Chinese who grew up in the china of the 50's and 60's and find themselves in charge of the country now see only chaos when they look at us.
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