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Comment by ferbivore | Hacker News Reader

You think resistance movements should never have telecommunications access?

One's freedom fighter is someone else terrorist.

One's nominal group in power is someone else's genocidal occupier.

Again, this is often the case in civil conflicts (factional fighting). But the subjects of this action are undeniably bad actors. Are the authorities bad actors as well, yes, very likely. But the regional players want the targeted subject's abilities degraded and their options strangled regardless of what the local authority wants. I think the rest of the world is simply lining up behind the regional players. Which was inevitable really.

And frequently the so called terrorist is not a terrorist by any reasonable meaning of that world. Like, frequently they are non violent.

Frequently they are nonviolent.

In this particular case however, they are decidedly violent and dangerous. So why not cut them off?

Then make that argument instead of arguing by slogan.

However, in this specific situation, they are definitely terrorists.

"armed resistance movement" sounds pretty close to terrorists to me

That is definitely an "It Depends"

It depends a lot on who they are shooting

If they are shooting irrelevant and innocent civilians (with the goal of introducing broader fear in the population to somehow change their minds), then definitely terrorists.

If they are shooting only govt/regime military/police/enforcers or officials, much more like an opposing power.

I'm going to hard disagree here. You're part of this whole sliding of the word terrorism from its classic meaning of using organized violence to inflict fear for political gains to its insidious fascist interpretation as using violence against the current political status quo.

Using violence to overthrow the Myanmar government is not automatically terrorism at all. Groups throughout history have used organized violence without resorting to inflicting fear to achieve their goals.

>from its classic meaning of using organized violence to inflict fear for political gains to its insidious fascist interpretation as using violence against the current political status quo.

What's the difference between the two, besides the latter lacking a just cause? If that's the only difference, then that just proves my and OP's point that "one man's freedom fighter is another one's terrorist"

Are you voluntarily dismissing the issue of fear. Rising up, taking weapons, and fighting for a cause does not automatically come with the dispersal of fear on civilian populations. That’s the difference: the choice of not dealing in fear.

Unless, of course, they're freedom fighters.

Was the US revolution against the British empire terrorism?

Nowadays talking about independence would be considered "Terrorism" This word is a new "Catch all" for everything you don't like (immigrants, antifa, any protest...)

> antifa

To be fair, Antifa is objectively a terrorist organization, given that they employ violence on innocents to cause fear in the populace to achieve political goals. That's literally the definition of terrorism.

Yes, although the term hadn't yet been invented:)

Only if you redefine "terrorism" to include any armed resistance/revolution.

What word, terrorism? In my head the term was much older, but looking it up shows it's a late 18th century French word. TIL, lucky 10k I guess. Then I realized I was confusing it with assassin.

Exactly! And that's why we all agree that Nelson Mandela, the WWII French resistance and Native Americans are clearly terrorists!

You think the issue is that black and white?

That's not what OP is saying.

An entity truly in control should be able to deny access to insurrectionists because of you know, being in control.

They are in control of the military, and presumably the capital city area and a majority of the country's resources.

That says nothing about their power to control the satellites overhead.

I think the commenter only meant that there is such a thing as RF engineering. But that to be effective, RF engineering would require the local authorities to have some level of control over the region they want to shut down.

Thus, the authorities must not have that control.

I agree with the commenter from a technical perspective. It's extremely easy to cut off SpaceX terminals in some area if you control that area.

I just don't think that's relevant. It's not the local authorities the rest of the world is lining up behind, it's the regional players around Myanmar. The regional players can countenance the local authorities only slightly more than the warlords and gang leaders. What the local authorities want is almost completely irrelevant to the regional players.

Clearly, they are not in control of SpaceX.

Yes they are, if they are able to force SpaceX to do as they want.

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