What is Happening in Istanbul? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#201

Post by e3pi » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:48 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #176

bconway wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see stories like this, I'm always impressed at the wide availability of gas masks. Are we even allowed to own those in the States?* *Yes, I know how sad of a question that is.

Of course we're "allowed" to own them in the United States... Despite what people on reddit, and other fringe internet forums would have you believe, The United States has some of the strongest personal liberties in the world.

We Americans may be allowed to own gas masks, but we are not allowed to wear them. I was at WTO `Battle in Seattle', protesters were arrested for wearing them, individuals had their gas masks brutally removed then pepper sprayed in the face.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#202

Post by endianswap » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:48 PM UTC

jasonlingx wrote: post #181

api wrote: post #158

"These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its…

What a load of rubbish. What does this have anything to do with Singapore?!

I hate to reply to a comment like this, but for anyone new to HN, these folks come out whenever Singapore is mentioned in a negative light. For a previous rendition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2621371

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#203

Post by wavefunction » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:48 PM UTC

kmfrk wrote: post #30

diminish wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and others on quora, http://www.quora.com/Istanbul/What-is-happening-at-Gezi-Park...

http://www.quora.com/Istanbul/What-is-happening-at-Gezi-Park... Append "?share=1", and the dumbass registration wall goes away.

System hacking detected! Querystrings are our last defense!

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#204

Post by geuis » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

jasonlingx wrote: post #181

api wrote: post #158

"These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its…

What a load of rubbish. What does this have anything to do with Singapore?!

You entirely miss the point. He's holding up Singapore as a shining example of the end-state of affairs that the government of Turkey is trying to emulate. Since we don't have a word for it yet, or we haven't learned it, we're saying "Singaporification" as a placeholder. People might have said "Nazification" before the word "fascism" was well defined.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#205

Post by wavefunction » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

iaskwhy wrote: post #134

pionar wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI isn't exactly an impartial source either. That's not a news article, it's an editorial.

Can't say I understand your comment. RT published an article saying AI said something so I went to AI to verify if they really said it and they didn't. What's your point? If the idea is talking about reliable sources then we will have a hard time finding one when even the NYT was able to justify a war with false data... Sure, noone's 100% reliable and that's why you check several sources. That's actually what I did o…

pionar obviously has an interest in disbelieving, for whatever weird reason

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#206

Post by mertd » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:53 PM UTC

cdash wrote: post #133

mertd wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is a major highway. Pedestrian traffic is are not allowed. Getting on the bridge as a group of people is very rare and requires significant critical mass to pull off.

Like a major protest?

The go-to location for major protests is the Taksim Square, which is four miles from the bridge by foot. The protests need to be really widespread and populous to spread to the bridge. I don't remember that happening in my recent memory (except for a local soccer thing).

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#207

Post by scarmig » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:53 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #176

bconway wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see stories like this, I'm always impressed at the wide availability of gas masks. Are we even allowed to own those in the States?* *Yes, I know how sad of a question that is.

Of course we're "allowed" to own them in the United States... Despite what people on reddit, and other fringe internet forums would have you believe, The United States has some of the strongest personal liberties in the world.

Fairly disingenuous to claim we can own them, which, though true as far as it goes, really doesn't accurately describe the situation.

In most jurisdictions, it's illegal to wear a gas mask during a protest. The ostensible logic for this is that they, as with all masks, obscure the face and hinder personal identification by police (which we'd call "internal security forces" if it were Turkey or China or someplace).

If you're caught wearing one during a protest, you can be arrested ipso facto, and it will be confiscated and not returned to you, and you'll be subject to legal penalties merely for wearing it.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#208

Post by venus » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:54 PM UTC

api wrote: post #158

"These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its…

> protesting something I call "Singaporification."

I love how people always cast Singapore as some kind of horror story cautionary tale. No-one seems to have told the actual people of Singapore, who are perfectly free to leave their nightmarish dystopia at any time, and yet seem perversely inclined to stay. Somehow this obvious, central, crucial fact gets left out of the "we don't want to turn out like Singapore!" narrative.

I think the real reason people demonise Singapore isn't because it's a bad place to live; it's because it is actually a really good place to live, and this fact causes a certain conflict in the libertarian mind, a fundamental undermining of the whole axiomic structure of their beliefs and no-one wants to face that. So, instead, they try to villify it in vague terms of being some kind of anti-freedom devil state - a North Korea that, by Satan's blessing, works.

I'll tell you the really scary thing about Singapore. It's a better place to live than 99.9% of these so-called "freedom" countries. I'd live there over any city in America bar maybe NYC, and certainly over Istanbul. The scary thing is that, when you consider the outcome, maybe the Singapore formula is a better form of government, and a lot of people don't even want to contemplate that.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#209

Post by jasonlingx » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:56 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #197

jasonlingx wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a load of rubbish. What does this have anything to do with Singapore?!

Maybe you should read his post again if you don't understand why he's talking about Singapore. You're probably one of the people he's talking about, who think that Singapore is a model to emulate all around the world.

> You're probably one of the people he's talking about, who think that Singapore is a model to emulate all around the world.

Assuming a lot eh?

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#210

Post by cdash » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:57 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #184

arrrg wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this description was more akin to describing the USA or Germany as “Christian democratic states” as a majority in both of those are Christians. It doesn’t mean that Christianity is the state religion or something. Turkey has been a successful majority Muslim but very secular and democratic state for a very long time. Maybe that’s changing … (Ah, decisions, decisions. Sometimes I think the EU should have accel…

> Turkey has been a successful majority Muslim but very secular and democratic state for a very long time. Maybe that’s changing … Uhm. Military coups in: 1960, 1971, 1980, as well as substantial intervention in the succession of power in 1997 that many considers a coup. The secular nature of the Turkish state has largely remained as secular as it is because the Turkish military has a tendency to conduct coups whenev…

The Turkish military is much weaker than it used to be with the government having thrown many of its top leaders into prison accusing them of planning yet another coup and replacing with people that are sided with Erdogan. Still, it has a long history of stepping in if secularism is threatened so it will be interesting to see what happens in the future if Erdogan is able to stay in power and keep on implementing more and more religious policies.