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Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

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Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#221

Post by throwaway423342 »

throwaway423342 wrote: post #219
Rapzid wrote: post #13

The Sino-British Joint Declaration was a mistake. What did they think would happen? If not now then what about in 2047?! Were they hoping that was enough time to warm the new generations to the idea of giving up their rights? There is no fixing this, but I appreciate the effort by the British. Many will not want to leave, understandably. But the threat of draining HK is an interesting sort of pressure to put on China…

Laws/Declarations etc is moot when Britain took HK as colony through weapon & war, after the 1840 opium war. Remember, the British tried to sell opium to China, the government at the time refused to take the shit the British merchants tried to sell to China, and the British was like you know what, I'll shove this down your throat. It's so weird when people talk about HK, they don't talk about how it all started, or a…

also, ready to be downvoted on HN, but just want to give people another perspective

Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#222

Post by aswanson »

dang wrote: post #170
aswanson wrote: post #36

China is a horrific, authoritarian monster. I hope this century sees their vision checked and reduced back to the edges of humanity.

Nationalistic flamewar is not ok here, let alone drive-by flamebait like this that is as grandiose as it is cheap. We ban accounts that post like this. No, that's not because we're defending China or are secret communist agents. We're defending HN against vandalism. Not to mention arson. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807418 .

Apologies to the community. This post was after a few beers, but inexcusable nonetheless. Won’t happen again.

Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#223

Post by dang »

aswanson wrote: post #222
dang wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalistic flamewar is not ok here, let alone drive-by flamebait like this that is as grandiose as it is cheap. We ban accounts that post like this. No, that's not because we're defending China or are secret communist agents. We're defending HN against vandalism. Not to mention arson. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23807418 .

Apologies to the community. This post was after a few beers, but inexcusable nonetheless. Won’t happen again.

I've been there. Thanks for the kind reply to a rather harsh chiding.

Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#224

Post by joveian »

save_ferris wrote: post #206
joveian wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell this is completely false and none of the eyewitnesses have corroborated that account. The famous photo of "Tank Man" provides evidence of a case where this didn't happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man The main wikipedia article on Tianenmen square discusses other estimates of the number of deaths (all others being much lower): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests…

> The famous photo of "Tank Man" provides evidence of a case where this didn't happen. I disagree, that photo could’ve easily been taken before the killing started. The fact that tank man’s identity or whereabouts are unknown provides evidence that he was probably killed in the demonstrations. > The British government has itself killed quite a lot of civilians and is hardly a reliable source considering their history…

Please read the article I linked, it was the day after the square was cleared and was witnessed by a number of people. There is a quote from one of the leaders of the protests saying that he saw many people blocking tanks. He did not say he saw tanks running over anyone.

I do not think in general governments are a good source of facts and even in the best circumstances most seem incapable of telling the truth. The British government reporting on China is nowhere near the best circumstances. The account you quoted now serves as propaganda for people who want to believe that China is uniquely monstrous. A number of people have quoted it on HN and it is at odds with eyewitness accounts.

Even the Chinese government admits it killed hundreds of people during the protest. Possibly the number is over 1k, but 10k deaths is not credible nor is the vivid account.

Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#225

Post by AnimalMuppet »

entropea wrote: post #189
save_ferris wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppressing the Tianenmen Square uprising. From a UK diplomatic cable describing the scene: > STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS. Say what you will about the US, we still haven’t run citizens over with tanks and hosed them down drains. Sour…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

You seem to be trying really hard to steer the conversation away from China.

Yes, the US has done plenty of things that are wrong. We talk about them frequently, including here on HN. But this conversation is about China oppressing the people of Hong Kong. Do you mind letting us discuss that, without distracting us with "But the US!!!!!" all over the place?

Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#226

Post by Rapzid »

throwaway423342 wrote: post #219
Rapzid wrote: post #13

The Sino-British Joint Declaration was a mistake. What did they think would happen? If not now then what about in 2047?! Were they hoping that was enough time to warm the new generations to the idea of giving up their rights? There is no fixing this, but I appreciate the effort by the British. Many will not want to leave, understandably. But the threat of draining HK is an interesting sort of pressure to put on China…

Laws/Declarations etc is moot when Britain took HK as colony through weapon & war, after the 1840 opium war. Remember, the British tried to sell opium to China, the government at the time refused to take the shit the British merchants tried to sell to China, and the British was like you know what, I'll shove this down your throat. It's so weird when people talk about HK, they don't talk about how it all started, or a…

Yeah, a lot has happened since 1840. Two world wars. During the second of which the British and the USA were allied with China against Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese war. After which of course Mao Zedong came into power and orchestrated the death of upwards of 45 million of his own countrymen through famine and murder.

Great history lesson. I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the younger generations in HK suffering their freedoms, and perhaps human rights, being stripped away in 2020.

Yeah, good thing China "has nuclear". /s

Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#227

Post by candiodari »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #211
umvi wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Freedom isn't free" Freedom is extremely expensive in terms of blood required to achieve it, so I'm always amazed at how easily people are convinced to give it up one inch at a time until it's all gone again.

Most people don’t realize that the equilibrium state of humanity is definitely not freedom. Just check your nextdoor app, or facebook: humans love telling other humans how to behave, if you give them force, they will use it.

And in plenty of fields, people do actually have this option. Correcting society is an explicit goal of social work and psychology, both in research and practice. From "youth work" (50%+ unwanted by both youth and parents, and when it comes to residential treatments 85%+ unwanted, and 12% residential treatment is convicted youth) to "social work" for adults (again, majority is unwanted)

And of course, unwanted means that for the "clients" there is at the very least a threat of violence against them (or their kids/family/...) in the majority (for kids VERY large majority) of cases.

In some countries, "the social sector" is the biggest public sector, in all countries it's very, very big. Including the US, but at least here it doesn't exceed education or the medical sector in size.

Of course, these don't let themselves be stopped by the longstanding research pointing out that without client's cooperation (and of course unwanted means no cooperation), there is little to no point to treatment, and very significant downsides. Which is why horror stories like this happen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noa_Pothoven#:~:text=3%20Publi....

Such horror stories are anecdotal evidence. The real proof comes from large scale statistical studies:

https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/s2215-0366(19)30180-4

Or, for the youth case:

https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583

Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#229

Post by lenkite »

umvi wrote: post #141
mensetmanusman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might makes right, nothing we can do about it unless people are willing to die to protect them.

"Freedom isn't free" Freedom is extremely expensive in terms of blood required to achieve it, so I'm always amazed at how easily people are convinced to give it up one inch at a time until it's all gone again.

As the American Declaration of Independence states "..all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed"

What a truly, extra-ordinary document on the human condition. Coming up with that text in that era..I wish I had that kind of insight and wisdom.

Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship

#230

Post by lenkite »

addicted wrote: post #127
tim58 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true the trump administration is very anti immigrant at, it is also very anti ccp.

I don’t understand where people get that idea from. In practice nothing the US has done has hurt the CCP. If anything, it has strengthened them domestically. The major actions the Trump administration has taken against China are: 1) Tariffs which only served to hurt American farmers, considering there was hardly any drop off in Chinese exports to the US (and that’s on paper, since a lot of Chinese exports are now hid…

Xiaomi is only in end-user electronics and has nothing on infrastructure hardware - AFAIK it is not competing with US companies in deploying 5G hardware.

I do not consider a +20% drop in Chinese exports to the US as "hardly any drop".

Trump has put an end to e-packet which was killing US small-scale businesses: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump...

TPP was a nightmare opposed both by the left and right - and even by Hillary Clinton - at-least formally in her campaign. Only corporate shareholders supported it. It even pushed copyright terms further! See https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/whats-wrong-tpp

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