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Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

The situation of HK and the rights of the residents have not fundamentally changed since it was ceded to the British in 1842. In fact they have more democratic representation now than during most of their history.

It's far from perfect but it's infinitely better than on the mainland.

Nothing justifies "resorting to violence" in HK today. The violent actions along with anti-Chinese displays are in fact counterproductive because they push the central government to tighten the screw and unite the mainland's public opinion against them.

Many of these protesters have no democratic culture themselves. Anyone who disagrees with them is wrong and an enemy that must be fought by any means.

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> Nothing justifies "resorting to violence" in HK today

If they're basically going to be steamrolled by a rather unsubtle up-and-coming superpower, perhaps they have no choice. In fact IF violence is all you're left with (and that does seem to be the case as legal recourse is blocked) then violence is necessary.

The CCP is not backing down until it has borged HK.

What are the specific "actions of the CCP" that have actually occurred to date that supposedly justify violence from the protesters?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/05/rights-under-t...

Any time there's an article about China and Hong Kong, people who know nothing about either, besides that China is ruled by the communist party, come out of the woodwork to take a dump on China.

People look down on Trump and ridicule him endlessly when he spews bullshit about things he knows nothing about. But if you spew bullshit about China, you get lots of upvotes.

And if you dare to speak the truth and the nuances about the situation in Hong Kong, you get downvoted to oblivion.

EDIT: Case in point, downvoters! Go ahead, show me you know something about China and Hong Kong.

I'm getting used to it so I ceased to comment on the main post whatever. People can believe in what they believe in and it's fine for me. You probably should do the same, too.

Truth be told, I'm having too much fun calling out bullshit.

You should try to enjoy it too. It gets lonely sometimes :)

Yup, I've given up ages ago. When confirmation bias has hit supercritical level like it has here, there's nothing anyone can say anymore that will change the minds of those holding the consensus opinion.

It's the worst part of the Internet: there is really no real listening to the other side. Everybody gets an opinion and the most important thing for him on something not really in his field(s) is, get his opinion out!

I think the HN's algorithm also contribute to the problem: the fastest and most upvoted response leads the discussion, and normally not the most valuable.

The bias you're talking about is real, in my observation, but you can't counteract it by ranting and breaking the site guidelines, let alone baiting others into downvoting you. It's a direct consequence of HN's demographics, which are overwhelmingly Western, and there's no way to change it other than slowly and patiently, by adding good information.

Of course it's frustrating to encounter inflammatory comments that are based in ignorance. But if you respond like this, you feed those comments and give them greater credibility, while discrediting the very side you're trying to defend.

If you know more, then a better way is to share some of what you know so that others can learn. In any case, if you post here, please stick to the site rules regardless of how wrong or ignorant other commenters are or you feel they are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I was baiting for good information, not downvotes.

My apologies if it came out wrong.

Ah. The way to get good information is to post some yourself, and to do it in a way that communicates neutrality and openness to other points of view.

If you post in the flamewar style, everyone's going to just go rigid and fire on all cylinders. This mechanism works the same way regardless of what the topic is, and regardless of whose position is right or wrong.

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