1989 Tiananmen Square Protests
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
https://www.rt.com/news/486269-israel-protest-social-distanc...
And also, I was just having philosophical thoughts about the distribution of power in the world. I wonder if advances in technology will one day create a coalition of super powerful people who will control the world and will make the rest of humanity slaves at best and completely worthless at worst.
I mean, do ethical people naturally gravitate toward power? or does power tend to attract the less empathetic (to put it nicely)?
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I even fear one day we won't be even able to post about this topic.
Reminds me of an old IT joke - We finally made the perfect code, it debugs itself. Alas when we run it, it electriculted the programmer.
At the foundation of the U.S., in the Federalist Papers #51 (1788) it says:
> If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary
To your point:
> I wonder if advances in technology will one day create a coalition of super powerful people who will control the world and will make the rest of humanity salves at best and completely worthless at worst.
It's hard to say we haven't come dangerously close to achieving this approximation already. Regardless of your political affiliation, there was a headline today saying that Facebook is categorizing protests formed on its platform as "dangerous misinformation". This is a dangerously powerful stance that we shouldn't take lightly.
Not seeing any myself given social distancing back then and now meant different things to people. Back then it would be some form of euphemism for - governmental cover up, which is not the go to definition we all know today when somebody says "social distancing".
What similarities other than both were protests are you seeing?
Btw, why is this post being flagged?
>... make the rest of humanity slaves at best and completely worthless at worst.
I'm not suggesting they are comparable, just that one evoked images of the other. Might be why it's being posted?
Some weird logic I've seen recently where if you post something about China being bad, and it gets deleted, then that place is "tarnished".
While it's possible, I'd be very skeptical that YC/admins are intentionally silencing anti-China messaging; I've certainly seen many posts critical of CCP. It certainly seems plausible that the Chinese state has agents and/or bots that nudge online content in accordance with the party line; if so, I'd be curious to know to what extent HN is on their radar, compared with more highly-trafficked sites like Reddit.
I also think that HN mods should have access to enough user data to be able to run some tests and see if particular accounts are more targeted towards CCP critical posts and comments than would be expected by a normal HN reader.
Even the videos posted yesterday of nurses in Denver blocking protesters showed a lady screaming "If you want communism, go to China!!"
the lady was making a very misleading claim. I think the only country with something resembling communism left is NK and probably Cuba.
It's interesting to see that after all that a new generation is out there, some willing to simply dismiss the value of knowing that such an event even happend.
"The reforms of the 1980s had led to a nascent market economy which benefited some people but seriously disaffected others, and the one-party political system also faced a challenge of legitimacy."
I.e. allowing the form (but not substance) of democracy to come in before people were ready for it, just as they making some progress on the constructive path of controlled economic liberalization, and derailing it to produce a oligarchic kleptocracy that would plunge the country into long-feared poverty and chaos. Which we can now see what happened to the USSR.
If you think of that as the choice that was facing those leaders at the time, their actions are more understandable. Just like how we look back now at the Soviet scare era of our history and wonder how we ever got caught up in that ridiculous hysteria.
Again, I say understandable, not excusable. Of course there likely were aspects of preserving power for its own sake, but looking at Deng's intentions and actions (other than Tiananmen Square) throughout his career, one has a hard time saying that he was motivated mostly for maintenance of power and not some public good.
It is a complicated story, and worthy of more than just a knee-jerk reaction. And yes, the important democracy movement and its terrible tragedy ought to be commemorated.
I feel that in China a guy like Snowden would have been tortured and executed, his family imprisoned, his neighbours interrogated, everyone in his vicinity would have everything confiscated and searched.
With that said I fear that we will never learn the truth about what happened to those captured in the protests. China's history is drenched in blood, and current government doesn't seem to want to change this.
But I don't think they would go ahead and imprison-->torture-->execute his family, his fiancée/wife, his extended family, his neighbours.
I China, NK they would without even spending one minute to think about it. And then they would "delete them from history" (yes I have watched too much Star Trek).
I don't think USA imprisons en masse because people believe in God-A instead of God-B. That happens in other countries.
Again we go back to secrets = lies and US gov has plenty on its back violating rights left right and centre and all over the world. But it's not Saudi Arabia.
Update here since I am rate limited. Check wikipedia for non combatant death counts. Read the first chapter of Gulag Archipelago, and with the very bloody revolution, disasterous collective farming, and constant purges of innocent civilians, you may find 100 million very plausible, if not even sounding on the low side.
Also telling is that Stalin had the UN change the definition of genocide so his gulags and policy disasters would not be counted.