Hacker News Reader

Comment by sonnhy | Hacker News Reader

They talk about China yet still a few realize that we are as well going into that direction. CCTV are everywhere, Facebook and Google have our identities, what we like, what we look for, what will be our probable next move (also in terms of real world position) and our routines. If ever a Chinese that feel safe in his home comes to the outer world (to us) he would say "how could this nation is so undeveloped to not already have a better security likes us" and we would be amazed and reply how he does not, instead, feel so stalked in his state. But still, if we were to go on a third world nation we would ask the same and the local people would reply at us the same way as we did to the chinese.

View on HN

I think Chinese are not that smart to use some fancy words like "freedom of speech" "democracy" "individual liberty" but still doing same things as all other is doing. The problem here is how some country builds narrative and justification around her actions.

Digital age is double edge sword and everyone is going to bleed under the pretext of security.

China is a one-party system in which the country is run by a single cadre of 'politicians'. There is corruption everywhere and there are Draconian laws which are applied selectively and sometimes enforced and sometimes not (e.g. half of all food stands in cities are illegal, riding motorbikes is illegal in many cities, etc.). Internet and phone calls are constantly monitored and filtered based on certain words to the extent that if you use a certain word even in a different and completely innocuous context your phone call is interrupted or your internet connection stops working. There are hundreds of political prisoners and laws are applied selectively based on your standing within the party. There are political re-education camps and critiques of the government are frequently arrested under bogus and clearly invented pretexts, are often often put under house arrest, and are constantly harassed and surveilled by all kinds of authorities. Public protests are persecuted as uprisings against the state, using various deliberately vague and overly broad laws.

The idea that the differences between China and freer countries are merely a matter of the 'narrative' is patently ridiculous. It is also false, because according to the Chinese constitution, "...citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration." So yes, China officially has the same narrative, it just doesn't have any due process, has massive surveillance not even remotely comparable to Western countries, and suffers from massive corruption in the hands of a single 'party'.

I think its not "ridiculous" if you look at the outcome the narrative of fee societies is democracy which they use as weapon to destroy and plunder other countries, capture resources. I am not concerned how much a state is good with their own people but if they are using that same context to wage a war in another part of world that is so bad, uncivilized and undemocratic. For example if China start to export their socialism through force and use that to capture resources I ll be first to oppose that idea. China is massively big country with its third-world problems and new digital age issues one cannot suggest same pill as use in west.

West has lost all moral ground to become a world leader on these issues after what has happen and is happening to various middle eastern countries in recent day.

And what is current happening to these communities in China are direct side effect of West's interest in these issues and exploitation (e.g their rebel leader is current living in American) and every country has right to clean their backyard not just US or some other country.

You're offering nothing but lame excuses. You have not provided a single reason why China could not be a more democratic country with more than one party, less corruption, and more reasonable laws that are applied with due process and not selectively. The idea that more freedom and less corruptions inevitably leads to unrest is a non-sequitur. It has worked out quite well for those former East Bloc countries that are now in the EU.

You're also deviating from the topic. It is quite obviously and ostensively possible to have all these benefits for your citizens without oppressing other countries or waging unjust wars, in fact the majority of countries with a high degree of freedom, a multi-party system, and a high degree of due process are currently not waging any wars at all.

Give me example of one single country that is not waging any war or complicit of it ?

The other point is why the world should go by force for democracy?

Democracy is freedom, I don't like that democracy I am happy with dictatorship why someone should cry ? ( not pointing at you).

Lets say whole population is happy with their dictator and living a decent life,unless someone is arming rebels and inciting political turmoil by funding innocent people. Why you should interfere in their lives ?

So the question here is , is this political turmoil in China is happening purely by the desire of local populace or someone is funding because they have a hidden agenda ? As we have seen in recent year and seeing this elsewhere e.g in Syria where Us and West are engaged , this has not been just local desire but neighbors and everyone else interested in certain Geo-political goals, which kills the idea and need for democracy.

Democracy should come by learning by indigenous people, for indigenous it should not be "MY" desire or someone else desire.

> Give me example of one single country that is not waging any war or complicit of it ?

Almost every democratic country if you hadn't changed the topic again. We were talking about waging a war, not "being complicit" or small-scale interventions like e.g. currently in Afghanistan. For instance, sending fighter jets equipped with cameras instead of bombs is not "waging a war".

I also don't think that it is fair to portray e.g. international alliances against ISIS as evil and unjust wars.

> The other point is why the world should go by force for democracy?

We shouldn't. I said that it's in the genuine interest of all Chinese people to get rid of their one-party system, get due process and fairer application of law, and have a multi-party system.

>Democracy is freedom, I don't like that democracy I am happy with dictatorship why someone should cry ? ( not pointing at you).

Because democracy is not primarily about your personal freedom, it's about maximizing freedom for everyone and also about due process and separation of powers. Being happy about dictatorship is not a consistent political position. If you benefit from a dictatorship, then it lies in the nature of dictatorships without due process that that's a mere coincidence for you. You could just as well be sent to a Gulag and tortured in besaid dictatorship. But the fact that you're personally happy with some particular dictatorship is not a valid argument for dictatorship as a form of governance. Nobody really wants dictatorship in general, if at all you might find a dictatorship from which you benefit somewhat desirable. I am not for democracy, because I personally benefit from it.

Why crying about it? Because the dictatorship you crave will invariably be bad for many other people, and normally functioning human beings are generally capable of compassion and empathy.

You should not, at least not from the outside, and I have never argued for that.

However, the whole argument is fairly academic, because the vast majority of people are simply not happy with dictatorships. It's just easy for countries without due process and lots of terror and intimidation to mask this, e.g. people in surveys will not tell you the truth. In fact, the more totalitarian the country, the less critical they will appear to be of their leaders. Of course, people under Pol Pot were afraid of making critical remarks, because they did not want to be suffocated with a plastic bag.

That being said, since you were deviating again, I have not claimed that China is a dictatorship.

Democracy should come by learning by indigenous people, for indigenous it should not be "MY" desire or someone else desire.

I believe there is ample evidence, both historical and individual, that democracy is everyone's desire upon sincere reflection. Or, at least there is a historic development towards democracy that has had positive effects that are impossible to deny. That's a mere tendency, of course, you will always find naysayers. There is also a lot of disagreement about how to get there, and that's quite reasonable.

Although I agree, that democracy is preferable over dictatorship, if everything else stays equal, but many,many people would prefer to live n a low corruption/good healthcare/good education authoritarian Belarus than in freer but more poor and corrupt Ukraine or Kyrgyzstan.

Whilst I agree, such conviction of argument does raise my alarm bells. I feel just a little too comfortable in the knowledge that China is of a distinctly "worse" political category. Actually, if I'm honest, this sort of arguing reminds me of fighting with my brother, I so needed to be right because I didn't want to face the fact that he was basically just a superficially different version of me. Ultimately what helps, is facing with the intention of understanding, the brutal reality of what it is to be a human with unchecked power, regardless of their nationality.

> Whilst I agree, such conviction of argument does raise my alarm bells.

Believing something that is true shouldn't be counted against oneself.

It's pretty easy to determine that the situation in the 'west' is different.

How many times in discussions on Chinese or Russian subversion or suppression of internal debate and freedom do you see posts trying to justify it or neutralize criticism using 'whatabout' tactics, aiming to change the discussion by pointing the finger somewhere else? Every time, because the behaviour can't be justified or supported on it's own terms. Whataboutism is pretty much the only justification available.

How many times in stories on US, British, etc internet surveillance or erosion of freedoms do you see someone say 'whatabout' another country doing the same thing and trying to justify our loss of freedoms based on other country's behaviour? Never. It just doesn't happen because American, British and other democratic societies look to their own democratic institutions, processes and freedoms to resolve these issues. We might look at loss of freedom elsewhere as a warning, but never as a justification that it's ok for us to lose them too. There are actual things we can do to protect our rights, so there's no need to wring our hands and say actually it's ok because somebody else is doing it. We don't give a fig what somebody else is doing, when it comes to protecting our own right and values, and nor should anyone else.

That's an easy rule of thumb for telling if a society is generally free or not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com