Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by arkades » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

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

I live in a country where political affiliation has become so central to personal identity, and so bound up in our perception of "good" vs. "bad" morality, that you can't take a dissenting position on anything - not even for fear of government censure, at this point, but for fear of social censure. It's not even fear of current social censure - it's become clear with people willing to dig up old transgressions that you have to protect not only against currently popular ideology, but anything that might become ideology in the future.[1]

I happen to agree with you. I'm just responding to the subtext in your post that seems to imply that we still have freedom to dissent.[2]

[1] This is my reminder that I'm running late on my regular purging of social media accounts. To try to at least vaguely preserve my sense of anonymity, which I'm sure is much more illusory than real.

[2] I have to point out, given that this current strain of criticism is also politically polarized, that I am a liberal. I just happen to be of the generation of liberals for whom phrases like "free speech extremist" are a betrayal of so much of what we stood/stand for.

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

#72

Post by gentleman11 » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #8

Aqua wrote: 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.

> 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…

If we are calling for treason charges, there really needs to be a link to a reliable source

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

#73

Post by baybal2 » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

wjn0 wrote: post #68

baybal2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the US shares some of the fruits of capitalism and liberal democracy with China, the people of their country may follow suit? You don't share liberal democracy by teaming up with rogue regimes against it.

I'm not saying the policy is worthwhile or even justifiable, but the comment I replied to later used the word "treason" (sorry, I didn't quote it) which implies that these actions aren't endorsed, and certainly not encouraged, by the US government.

I want to put people's attention on distinguishing in between actual sharing of fruits, vs Western companies coming to repressive regimes without good faith in mind from the start.

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

#74

Post by jpgreens » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #63

hkt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's traditional to label any left-wing movement in the US as "Marxist", regardless of the actual content of its views, simply because that's an effective thought-terminating cliche for the rightwing audience. Nobody cares about the historical analysis. The intent is always the same; in this case, to make it clear that if the police aren't allowed to murder people in the street without repercussions, America will imm…

This is a nice example of why I think calling ideologies by their name is more helpful to a discussion than calling a collection of ideas left- or rightwing.

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

#75

Post by corey_moncure » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

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…

Speaking as charitably as possible, comments like these indicate to me that the poster has never been to China and has no idea about the actual conditions there. If you just step outside the select few favored economic zones you will see a very different, much lower, standard of living that accounts for the vast majority of the land area. Granted the last time I was there was about eight years ago, but taking a bus from Taicang to Kunshan for instance, on the Eastern coast just out of Shanghai, I rode through villages that didn't even have electricity. People were carrying jugs of water on their heads and walking barefoot through dirt roads like it's 1200 BCE. I doubt much has changed for those people in eight years.

Even in the cities, is it safe to drink the water yet or use ice cubes? Or are we still having a refreshing cup of boiling hot tea at lunchtime on muggy 35 degree summer days? Is there toilet paper in the public restrooms yet in the tourist districts in Nanjing? Please let me know if things have changed so I can update my image of China that's informed by direct first hand experiences.

It's absurd to suggest that everything is just hunky dory in China or attempt to establish an equivalence between living conditions in China and the United States, or any developed Western nation; so much is obvious to anyone who has spent even one day in a representative median location in both. When videos depicting the real situation are easily available to view on Youtube, it crosses the line into irresponsibility and maybe even propagandism.

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

#76

Post by wjn0 » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #73

wjn0 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying the policy is worthwhile or even justifiable, but the comment I replied to later used the word "treason" (sorry, I didn't quote it) which implies that these actions aren't endorsed, and certainly not encouraged, by the US government.

I want to put people's attention on distinguishing in between actual sharing of fruits, vs Western companies coming to repressive regimes without good faith in mind from the start.

Sorry, I didn't mean to detract from that point. I completely agree.

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

#77

Post by arkades » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

Adverblessly wrote: post #67

arkades wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you at some point think that the corporate leadership of a massive for-profit organization was going to make a public statement that was anything other than the bare minimum lip service they were required to pay in order to weather the PR storm of the day, so that they could continue doing business? The answer to that question is almost always "no," and certainly until proven otherwise. Complaining that these cor…

I agree that this is the behaviour displayed by (almost?) all large corporations and thus that expecting that they will behave differently is irrational, in the sense that that expectation will always turn out to be false. That said, I don't see why that means we should expect that behaviour in the sense that we should consider this the expected, correct, behvaiour from corporations. Perhaps if everyone believed that…

> If everyone was like OP in condeming these corporations maybe their expectations would eventually become real.

No, they wouldn't, because the selection pressure on the organization is for the minimum amount of signaling required to optimize profits, not actual morality - not least of which because optimizing for profits optimizes for continued existence of the organization, and maximizing morality does not. Holding them to a higher moral standard just changes the measure of "what is the minimum amount of signaling required?" Selection pressure is unyielding - values that don't affect survival ultimately don't matter, because however much you like it, it will be competed out of existence.

Nor could an organization exhibit actual morality, because an organization doesn't have continuity of thought or policy - flip a few board members, change an executive team, and the people whose judgement comprises "the company's judgement" just changed entirely. It would be like discussing the morality of a robot which regularly swapped the brain it contains.

You're making the same category error as the previous poster: describing "corporation" as a noun that has a characteristic known as "morality," and then lamenting the amount of "morality" we expect from it.

Morality is for people. Profit-seeking institutions don't have morality - they have regulatory constraints on profit-seeking avenues. Tricking people into thinking corporations have the former is a jedi mind trick: keep people focused on controlling corporations with the same social censure mechanisms that work on people means you're not focusing your time and effort on the mechanisms of control that would actually work on corporations.

It's like a red dragon walking around talking about oh, gosh, how much his sunburn hurts. He's immune to fire; put away the torches and focus on something that might actually work.

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

#78

Post by greesil » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #27

paganel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That episode has near no coverage in English, and I don't think much of coverage in Russian survived to this day. But here is it in basics: Russian opposition was completely dominating the Internet at the time, before around 2005, a complete opposite of the picture on the TV, and fake opinion polls. Kremlin was not happy, and went straight to the Internet's "kingmaker" — Google (or maybe it was the other way around?)…

It would be really helpful if you could link to a source for this information, even something of ill repute.

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

#79

Post by doliveira » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

Aqua wrote: 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 companies' PR statements are innocuous for society at large and are at best just thermometers for the current political climate. I don't know why people expect huge corporations to have good hearts and enact political change by themselves; that is on us.

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

#80

Post by caymanjim » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

doliveira wrote: post #79

Aqua wrote: 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 companies' PR statements are innocuous for society at large and are at best just thermometers for the current political climate. I don't know why people expect huge corporations to have good hearts and enact political change by themselves; that is on us.

I don't expect or even want corporations to wade into the social and political arena, beyond doing the right thing with as little fanfare as possible. When they choose to publicly pat themselves on the back, they're begging to be called out for their inevitable hypocrisy when they fail to do so at inconvenient times, as the parent is doing. They should shut up and build things.