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Comment by anilshanbhag | Hacker News Reader

I have been reading r/hongkong on reddit for the past few months. The hong kong protest will likely go down as one of the smartest protests ever - use of lazers, memes, bluetooth based messaging, etc.

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Depends on how it ends, I just can't see any way for them to win. I fear China will just slowly escalate their heavy handedness until nobody is left.

That in itself may be considered a victory, depending on how far China is pushed and how they respond. If the rest of the world won't/can't do business with China anymore, that would be bad for China. HK's last ditch objective could end up as goading China into chopping off it's own feet to put down the protestors. A pyrrhic victory for sure, but still a victory in the long run.

That's an optimistic world-view. If they put down the protesters violently, I'm not convinced it would really have an impact more than 6 months out. Maybe I'm too cynical, but honestly, there don't really seem to be any negative long-term repercussions for bad actors in today's world.

It pushes innovators out, which is strategically problematic long-term. If you were an innovator, would that be the kind of environment you'd want to stay in?

it pushes innovators out only in the short term

How is an oppressive and/or corrupt environment any more welcoming to innovators in a longer time horizon?

It is already oppressive and corrupt today, yet it has no problem attracting as many "innovators" as it needs to. The only thing that may be unwelcoming are local instabilities like the hong kong stuff.

A HK crack down would be flash point which would force the hand of many countries. European nations such as Germany have been trying to avoid taking sides in order to preserve market access. Thus far the CCP have succeeded in gradually degrading free societies ability to speak ill of them. A HK crack down would force all who believe in liberal values to grow a spine.

or show complete geopolitical weakness. I am hoping for the spine growth.

I hope so. I just don't see how relations wouldn't be slowly normalized again within a year. I've seen very few lasting measures for bad actors. Even Russia, which was responsible for the downing of MH17 killing 193 Dutch citizens, is a major trading partner of the Netherlands.

This still makes me angry and I don't know what I can do about it.

that happened at least once before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests - next 30 years weren't exactly bad for China.

This is the first major, sustained, modern, technology-enabled, urban conflict between central authority and ambient/peripheral/distributed community.

Without benefit of hindsight it's impossible to know, but I'd wager that this is the single most important political event in the world right now.

If the people of Hong Kong can stop the aggressive imperialism of the CCP that will be a guiding light for everybody. Conversely, if the CCP succeeds in crushing HK who else is there to stop them consolidating their power?

Matt Stone and Trey Parker?

Taiwan is next on the list after HK, maybe Vietnam too, and they have militaries. Whatever happens in Hong Kong, everything after that is uphill for China.

sounds very interesting! is there any compiled list that summarizes the protester's technological countermeasures, how these steps circumvented previous regulations and how the government responded to interfere with those novel approaches?

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