theseadroid

I wonder if the criminals start to use automated voice systems, especially if those systems prompt and allow you to input numbers/password from the dialpad, how many more people would fall to the scam.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me friend. I didn’t link any video with police. I know which video you were talking about but it’s not in my previous posts.

Regarding nonviolent, it’s great you read about umbrella revolution and occupy central. But again I think the precise reason those movements failed is because the working class didn’t strike. Many of our modern human rights, such as 40 hours working week, creation of unions, etc are created because workers bind together and strike and disrupted the production of goods. Without a committed working class’s support is exactly the reason previous Hong Kong peaceful movements didn’t work.

Again I’m ok with violence against any oppressive regime. For Hong Kong, I don’t think that alone with achieve freedom. Only when the working class stop paying taxes, stop providing services to the government and its allies, stop maintain the same old social structure, would the revolution has some hope of succeeding.

I asked some questions, rather than trying to convey some arguments, since I'm not expert in any way about Hong Kong situation. The only thing led me making this post is after watching the old lady video I felt it's important to introduce some other viewpoints to the discussion happening on HN, a website I visit daily and I appreciate the HN community. Other than that I don't have any stake in the game. You might watched the beginning of the second video and think I talk about clean up after pretesting? In that video protesters shined laser on that old lady.

I might not have expressed my question clearly. Thanks for bearing with me:

1. Let's say the whole city would like to obtain democracy as fast as they can, strike would be one of the most effective method for nonviolent resistance, no? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance) I'm curious why this way of protesting has not been employed yet?

2. >My wife was just showing me a video of an undercover police officer trashing government property and threatening pepper spray when videoed --

I'm very aware of those police shenanigans. I'm also ok with violence against oppressive police/military. However, does this justify violence against not armed civilians with different opinions? If your answer is yes then it's fine. It would help me understand the perspective of westerners better.

1. Some non-vital sectors can go on strike without impacting food/welfare which has been done in the west for many times? Not every sector needs to be on strike at the same time?

2. I guess I was having too much hope that democracy fighters would hold onto their principles even when being enticed to use violence against civilians.

Sorry for not entirely related to the main thread, but since it seems there are many people in this thread knowledgable on what's going on in Hong Kong, I'd like to ask 2 questions. I'm not siding with CCP, but my issue is I'm not sure I can side with the protestors either. Because

1. Does the protestors representing the majority of citizens? If yes at this stage why the working class in Hong Kong hasn't started long term strike yet? I would imagine that the most effective non violence method of protesting by citizens would be stop working. That would for one stop the tax flow to the government.

2. Is it necessary for protestors to be violent against pro-China civilians/properties? I'm aware that the protestors have been subject to violence from both police and mobs alike, but fighting for democracy should be a higher cause than revenge? Aren't they fight for freedom of speech among others? Or it's just freedom for themselves and violence and totalitarianism for who else disagrees? [1]

Again I love freedom to the point I've spent many years fighting it for myself and helped a few people. I support Taiwan to be an independent country. But we all know many bad things have been committed under the name of freedom as well. Now I'm not sure if the Hong Kong protestors are fighting under the name of freedom to actually express their hatred toward mainlanders? Thanks for reading and hope my questions would not offend anyone. Just would like to understand the situation better.

Edit: some explanations on the downvotes would be nice.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-GR88q8pIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPYuGYLesx0 (the planting of CCP flag near the end is really distasteful for me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NFb2chXt9k

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3031906.... (trashing trains while passengers still inside)

(Toby Guu is a Canadian software developer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Jgp7-tXfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFwGqF3QlVc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcw7lcZA7SE

I agree with you that >40 years old dislike China more as they never benefitted from the China's economic take-off that happened after 1990.

But I think for regular Chinese, the younger they are, the more liberal their world views are. This is because the education they received are more westernized each year (You might be surprised). Younger Chinese are generally more proficient in English. And to learn English people have to expose themselves to original English materials. I still remember when I was learning English I got access to things like TED, Open courseware such as Harvard's Justice, shows like the Newsroom, movies like the 12 Angry Men. China's human right records today is not good, but it was much much worse 30 years ago. Back then rural Chinese would kill new born female babies, have no issue buying and selling women (here's a movie about the topic[1]) and toddlers. People from different provinces fought and discriminated each other. And those are not government sponsored, just people being poor and illiterate. Now average Chinese are more literate and many more attended higher education (there's no higher education during the culture revolution)[2]. To this end I need to thank Nixon and people doing business with China. The average Chinese has a better life and can think more rationally thanks to economic and educational improvements.

On the other hand, internet censorship has become more strict after 2010. People do find ways to access VPN, it's just they don't discuss sensitive topics on Chinese internet.

1. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blind_mountain_2007

2. http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/cn (notice the Tertiary education section)

Hey, I wonder where did you get the less liberal part? From my experience China has become greatly more liberal during the last 30-50 years. When Nixon "opened up" China it was during the culture revolution and those were really tragic years for Chinese people. Since then average Chinese has become less poor and more liberal steadily each year.

Sorry for not entirely related to the main thread, but since it seems there are many people in this thread knowledgable on what's going on in Hong Kong, I'd like to ask 2 questions.

I'm not siding with CCP, but my issue is I'm not sure I can side with the protestors either. Because

1. Does the protestors representing the majority of citizens? If yes at this stage why the working class in Hong Kong hasn't started long term strike yet? I would imagine that the most effective non violence method of protesting by citizens would be stop working. That would for one stop the tax flow to the government.

2. Is it necessary for protestors to be violent against pro-China civilians/properties? I'm aware that the protestors have been subject to violence from both police and mobs alike, but fighting for democracy should be a higher cause than revenge? Aren't they fight for freedom of speech among others? Or it's just freedom for themselves and violence and totalitarianism for who else disagrees? [1]

Again I love freedom to the point I've spent many years fighting it for myself and helped a few people. I support Taiwan to be an independent country. But we all know many bad things have been committed under the name of freedom as well. Now I'm not sure if the Hong Kong protestors are fighting under the name of freedom to actually express their hatred toward mainlanders? Thanks for reading and hope my questions would not offend anyone. Just would like to understand the situation better.

Also I'd like to suggest for whoever suggesting going to war with China first consider asking your government to grant full citizenship, permanent residency, or unconditional asylum to Hong Kong permanent residents who wants it.

Edit: would like to hear some thoughts when you downvote.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-GR88q8pIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPYuGYLesx0 (the planting of CCP flag near the end is really distasteful for me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NFb2chXt9k

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3031906... (trashing trains while passengers still inside)

(Toby Guu is a Canadian software developer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Jgp7-tXfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFwGqF3QlVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcw7lcZA7SE

You might be thinking that the majority of Chinese are constantly under the fear of being monitored. The reality is people don't care and use VPN all the time. You might've heard people get in trouble using VPN in China. Many of you assume that's the norm. At least for now it's not. It would be like people from other countries heard there are shootings in U.S. schools and assume there are shootings in every U.S. school every day.

Your statement on Malaysia and Portugal GDP per capita surprised me. So I did some fact checking. According to Wiki Malaysia’s 2018 GDP per capita is usd 10,941. Portugal is 23,176. [1]

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Portugal

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Malaysia

Well, has U.S. ever apologized for operation Ajax? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état

>Vanguardism worked, in the sense that it resulted in the creation of formally communist governments, which waiting for Marx's prediction to come true had never (and still never has) done.

Would you consider that the Nordic countries are growing communism organically albeit how rudimentary it is?

For the last point of people who got rich during nineties by embezzlement, here's a relatively prominent case: Vancouver's ex mayor's ex girlfriend's mother. She was alleged embezzled 350 million rmb yuan which was supposed to be the compensation for factory workers[1]. When many of the state owned factories became privatized during nineties, many many workers lost their jobs and they needed those compensations desperately. (There's a quite good movie depicting the lives of those people called the Piano in a Factory[2]). Anyway my point is not all people who fled mainland China are freedom fighters.

1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanting_Qu#Personal_life https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%A0%E6%98%8E%E6%9D%B0_(%...

2.https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gang_de_qin

Writing large scale software is more of an organizational/social problem rather than an engineering problem.

My original links' parent's parent:

>The pilot is not politicized just because some people employed by her company are protesting.

My original links' parent:

>It could be disinformation, but I've read that some Cathay pilots and cabin crew were reprimanded for participating in the protests.

I was providing some fact from a relatively reliable and pro-HK reference to those commenters of which they are not aware, and has been grossed over by the Economist article.

To other HN readers, I'm sorry to drag you into this information sparse comment that concerns only my intention. I'm just not into being accused of something I didn't do.

To raquo, there's a guideline to avoid name calling[1]. Or maybe you think I don't deserve that kind of dignity? Anyway your personal attack is effective. I'll stop replying to you. Have a nice weekend.

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

I said in the later comment that the Economist is in no position to judge. Can I be surprised that they made the judgement? Or my surprise has to be only about whether the safety concern is real or not?

Let me make it crystal clear: I didn't necessarily believe that pilot protests / speech is a safety concern but I disagree at the use of "absurdly" in that sentence, because personally I think the Economist has no expertise to judge.

>and you're propping them up with your own judgement.

What judgement has I made? I said I'm surprised the Economist used the word absurdly. Is surprised a judgement?

>alleged "experts" that happen to agree with you.

What's my position in this matter? Did I say it's a safety concern in any comment? Again is surprised == I agree with the demand? Or please remind me if I said something else that made you think I agree with China's aviation authority?

>did not imperil the safety of passengers.

This should be a claim reserved to the experts. If everyone can make those kind of claims why we need FAA? China's aviation authority's claim might not be reasonable, but I'm in no position to judge. And I don't think the Economist can judge either. It not only judged, but grossed over the few incidents with just one word, absurdly.

Now you are a pilot yourself, I'm sure you have encountered many aviation rules that seem redundant or even borderline unreasonable. But we would assume there are reasons behind them right? Again not saying China's aviation authority's demand is reasonable. Sometimes even FAA fucked up (737-max). But when it comes to aviation, non expert opinions are really irrelevant.

I encourage you to watch this: The Rules for Rulers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

TLDR: dictators can't do whatever they want.

Many Chinese would thank you because you bought stuff manufactured by them. Without the opportunity to work on those "exploiting job", they'd be doing something with much less pay and much more hard works, and many of their next generations would be still doing the same job instead of having the opportunity to gain better education.

Totally agree. My question is which country does do that? I have voted once by moving. But I still don't have the choice to live in a society that I think is free and fair.

I wish I can live in a society where inequality is minimal, where people work and innovate not because of money, but because they enjoy their work and enjoy innovation. I wish I and my fellow citizens can have universal health and dental care, free higher education. I wish a political system without bribing disguised as lobbying, without innovation-killing monopoly. I wish we have similar chance of being happy irrelevant of how rich our parents are. A place where mental illness people are treated, instead of being free to be on the street. Where I can freely roam the city at any hour without the fear of being robbed or raped. Where the urban/transit design makes people free from using cars if they feel not like to. Where I don't have to work as a housing slave.

Now, if my view of a free and fair society is a majority view, why there's isn't one that I can go? If my view is a minority one, then I still don't have the choice in a democracy isn't it?

I'm more interested in what average Chinese experiences than the macro currency/debt figures. Yes food price has been going up. But salary has been going up in the past decades or so as well. I feel purchasing power has been flatlining now than before. Environment wise it's getting better actually. I agree with the growth of salary and food price, people's savings are destroyed. But other than that I wont use the word destroyed for other aspects. I personally think if it's not because of the economic achievement of the Chinese government, you wont see as much nationalism from there today.

Potentially because people have different understanding of what a free and fair society is.

I was a bit surprised the economist used the word absurdly actually. There are several incidents happened before China's aviation authority made the demand:

https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/08/21/cathay-pacific-pilot-w...

This pilots announcement happened before July 26.

I'm not saying it's easy, but it's better than not having the option right? Many HKers have done this during the 90s when HK became part of China.

HK allows dual citizenship and there are around 300,000 Canadians living in HK right now[1]. Not sure about other nationalities. And I think HK passport can go to many countries visa free or visa on arrival[2]. So in a sense many protesters do have a plan b if needed.

1. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/unrest-in-hong-kong-fue...

2. https://www.immd.gov.hk/eng/service/travel_document/visa_fre...

Considering the huge understanding gap between regular Americans and Chinese, I unfortunately suspect the trade war will not be over soon.

>Internally, China is destroying its people's savings, purchasing power, environment and health to achieve China's 'great destiny'.

More reference is needed. As a Mandarin Chinese my impression so far is otherwise.

Exactly. And voting on paper to me seems hackable as well, just with different methodologies, such as Gerrymandering.

Would those cases be considered misdiagnosis and incur reliability to the doctors?