Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists • Hacker News Board

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#131

Post by huffmsa » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #88

huffmsa wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's surprising about that? The HK government is necessarily compliant with the Mainland. Isn't that one of the root issues here? It'd be unexpected if they didn't stand down while PLA grunts, I mean "triad gangsters", put a beating on the protestors.

The Hong Kong police is made out of people. Unless they have an incredibly accurate filtering process for new hires, at least some police officers will support the protests, and even those who don't probably have some pride that'd make standing aside for criminal gangs hard to swallow. Of course the leadership could've arranged for the police force to retreat without informing them about the purpose. In that case, th…

The latter seems like the likely answer. If your unit is pulling back, then you have to decide on an individual level if you're going to follow the herd or go AWOL. Pretty easy groupthink situation.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#132

Post by stallmanite » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #54

MadSudaca wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The progressives in HN downvote you, but the truth is that being able to use violence to protect your individual freedoms is instrumental to democracy. Few places can boast the level of stability that EEUU has had in the last 150 years. Many were taken over by tyrants and armed mobs, than eventually chose their tyrant. It's no coincidence that in Venezuela the regime disarmed the people with a law that according to t…

Do we really think that armed citizens would have a chance against the current US military? Weaponry has come pretty far since the days the 2nd amendment was created.

I used to think this way. Then I saw what our boys went through doing house-to-house fighting in Iraq. The rural areas of the US are way more heavily armed than the Iraqis were circa 2005. Not to mention the amount of ammo and guns that right-wingers have been stockpiling since the Obama administration. (Perhaps for misguided reasons but nonetheless it happened)

It would be a bloodbath.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#133

Post by cevn » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #116

Santosh83 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May not work these days. The British were half decent and still they killed thousands of people before they left India. If the protestors continue non-violently, we'll simply see them shot with rubber bullets and carted off, or barricaded and starved out. Countries these days are willing to escalate into violence since every major country has more than enough blood on its hands and prefers tacitly looking the other w…

One wonders if the British were even half decent when you consider their long history of colonial and imperial oppression. One might conclude they were fully indecent, in fact.

Half decent? Has the GP heard of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, or how Churchill starved 3m in Bengal?

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#134

Post by huffmsa » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

0898 wrote: post #130

Could one make a case in favour of China's one party system by likening it to Apple's tightly integrated ecosystem? I mean, people argue that technology works better when one system controls the hardware, the software and the ecosystem around it. Could the same principle apply to human society? Which is an order of magnitude more complex than a piece of technology. Again, I don't know if this argument has been made b…

Yes. It's easier to run an entirely unified society in a centralized fashion than it is to run a free-for-all.

Your monoculture must necessarily be authoritarian to enforce the cultural and ideological policies.

It's also extremely fragile. Cut off the head and everything turns to anarchy. Which is what has happened over and over throughout China's history.

Versus somewhere on the polar opposite end like Switzerland where the national government is basically non-existent and could disappear tomorrow and there wouldn't be much disruption.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#135

Post by Merrill » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

shuzheng407 wrote: post #83

you need to know the whole chain of events to understand what happened at Yuen Long last night. also you need to know the unique identity of Yuen Long in order to comprehend the situation. Yuen Long is a village of people from several big family names, they are all relatives in a way. have their own system and rules and really hate outsiders telling them what to do. in history, they fought with British, fought with J…

Is the population of the New Territories North region less sympathetic with the pro-democracy protesters than Hong Kong Island and Kowloon?

They appear to have commercial ties to Shenzhen across the border. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Yuen_Long_protest

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#136

Post by huffmsa » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

verttii wrote: post #120

modi15 wrote: post #82

Seems to me this is Tiananmen part 2 unfolding before our eyes. And doesnt look like anyone will come to Hongkongs help. Hoping India will step up and do something. Seems unlikely though.

No foreign power would ever dare to intervene with HK. Every country is simply too horny about Chinese money nowadays

Last time we got hot and bothered about Chinese money, the British crashed the entire nation via illicit drug sales. No reason something like that won't happen again.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#137

Post by ginko » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #72

riffraff wrote: post #5

I am very curious, but worried, of the situation in HK. Concretely, it seems HKers can protest as much as they want, but when push comes to shove, the PRC will just end up crushing them and the parts of democracy they still have. I can't imagine how they may get any other outcome. Even if I wish they could just gain independence, it seems unlikely, and it's not like any foreign power would go to war to protect HK.

Your analysis is 100% correct. The handover was more than 20 years ago. The horizon for total integration was 50 years. We're more than 40% through. Pre-handover was "britain in asia". The endgame is "full integration". HK is nowhere near 40% full integration. Progress has fallen behind, and now they are catching up. The wishful thinking of HK residents doesn't change anything. The writing has been on the wall for de…

As far as I know that the agreement was for Hong Kong's way of life to "remain unchanged" for 50 years. So it should have been 2047 when they can start thinking about integrating Hong Kong.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#138

Post by LilBytes » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

shuzheng407 wrote: post #83

you need to know the whole chain of events to understand what happened at Yuen Long last night. also you need to know the unique identity of Yuen Long in order to comprehend the situation. Yuen Long is a village of people from several big family names, they are all relatives in a way. have their own system and rules and really hate outsiders telling them what to do. in history, they fought with British, fought with J…

I was wondering when we'd start to see the authoritarian apologists.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#139

Post by TheCoelacanth » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

dayofthedaleks wrote: post #117

dorfsmay wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This make sense intuitively: governments are better armed than the people (militarized police, military). If guns are used in a conflict between the people and a government, the government will crush the people immediately. On the other hand, enough protests and civil disobedience will disrupt the economy and the functioning of the government to the point they will have to react, or resign. I am not American and have…

It's arguable the Appalachian coal industry wouldn't have been unionized without armed agitation, but that may be unique to the region and the mine owners' eagerness to employ Pinkerton gunmen. I'd say the last time armed resistance had direct impact on law was the abolition of slavery. Most specifically John Brown's taking of a federal armory in 1859. It didn't end well for Brown, his sons, or the freed slaves invol…

You could just as easily use the American Civil War as a example of armed resistance being ineffective. One of the largest armed resistances in history (the CSA) and it ended up achieving the exact opposite of its aims.

Re: Chaos in Hong Kong as hundreds of masked men assault protesters, journalists

#140

Post by dirtyid » Mon, Jul 22, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #88

huffmsa wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's surprising about that? The HK government is necessarily compliant with the Mainland. Isn't that one of the root issues here? It'd be unexpected if they didn't stand down while PLA grunts, I mean "triad gangsters", put a beating on the protestors.

The Hong Kong police is made out of people. Unless they have an incredibly accurate filtering process for new hires, at least some police officers will support the protests, and even those who don't probably have some pride that'd make standing aside for criminal gangs hard to swallow. Of course the leadership could've arranged for the police force to retreat without informing them about the purpose. In that case, th…

>The Hong Kong police is made out of people.

Or simply because protesters have made their lives very difficult for the past couple months and they're running out of patience and sympathy. Simple ingroup / outgroup dynamics.