God just fucking kill me I hate tech libertarians more than satan's asshole
Probably unpopular take - I actually do sympathize with the HK protestors a bit... but it's never reported that HKs issues are NOT China's fault...
It's an undemocratic system inherited from when it was a colonial outpost. Hong Kong has never been a democracy and it's actually a weird "corporate state" where a "board of directors" run political affairs.
I see your point, and I feel like there is some genuine anti-authoritarian sentiment for some members of the movement, but overall it's not something I'd endorse as a leftist. I have plenty of issues with China, sure, but asking Marco Rubio to rain hell on them to protect your League of Legends clan isn't the way to deal with it.
Yeah, definitely. The disturbing part to me is how these protests are being co-opted as "China bad" when it's all about problems that existed before the China handover in late 90's.
A good way to illustrate how the HK government works is pretend the CEO of Exxonmobil, Disney, or Amazon were your representative in government. Most people assume that it's a liberal democracy, but it's not - and it's very out in the open, lol.
And I'm not sure 👏 more 👏 Chinese 👏 CEOs is the correct Socialist position. Critical support and all, but eh... all around crappy situation.
I agree. A huge reason why young Hong Kongers are protesting are because of economic conditions: no jobs, no savings and expensive rent for tiny apartments. Sounds like anywhere we know? So why be obsequious toadies to western nations like the US and UK when their own citizens are experiencing the same problems, especially if many Chinese citizens have gone from extreme destitution to a very high standard of living within their lifetimes.
As for the whole suffrage thing, it seems like it’s a safeguard against a populist reactionary from seizing power. If any whitey thinks it’s not democracy, then neither is the electoral college nor the restrictions on voting rights for felons and non-citizens.
If any whitey thinks it’s not democracy, then neither is the electoral college nor the restrictions on voting rights for felons and non-citizens.
:yes: Yes.
Even so, at least the undemocratic aspects of awful US politics aren't at the level of having fucking corporations elected to government.
lol I'm sure Hong Kong will really appreciate that and use this to drive their liberation struggle forward jerk off motion
Literally could not give a single shit about some millionaires' colonial tax shelter, bring 'em down Xi.
In case anyone’s wondering. I spent years mastering Emacs and Vim and eventually combined the two into Spacemacs, then did the whole “bipolar genius” functional LISP thing.
Now I can’t even touch a computer without having a nervous breakdown. Even opening the Spotify app... It’s too much capitalism.
please never become this concerned with text editing there is no way out these people will never stop their war against a Stallman that is not coming back.
Notepad++ - this is what enterprise developers install on Windows machines.
It’s familiar. Its the standard development environment.
So perhaps this is elitist of me, but who the fuck uses notepad++? If you're going to install a text editor that doesn't come with your system, get one that doesn't suck.
Yeah Vim has a very steep learning curve, which it makes no apologies about. If you invest in learning it, you get a full fledged IDE that can run on any number of systems, but if you already have an editor you like it might not be worth the effort. Personally I use vscode with the vim key bindings because navigating the vim plugin ecosystem was too much for me.
Personally I use vscode with the vim key bindings
I can’t stand vsvim specifically because it’s an inaccurate vim emulator. So I just use emacs and evil. It does what I need.
Don’t admit that online unless you want programmers to harass you all day long.
https://vscodium.com is the FOSS version of VS Code, which is better than brackets/atom
Ok, so this is really elitist of me, but vim is where it's at. Or emacs. I actually use an unholy combo of both (spacemacs) and I love it. It makes LaTeX so easy! And org-mode is life.
Kate is a pretty great editor with a similar set of features. I use it on Linux, but it has a Windows version. Dunno how weird it is in windows.
Atom if you're using Notepad++ for code. Open source, has great support/plugins. If you're using a text-editor solely for writing documents, though, I suppose something else would probably be better - but Atom does support markdown and using it for plain text isn't horrible.
idk, i tend to like a quick lightweight notepad-esque thing for quick edits when i think of them. basic regex and markdown obviously
Then atom is the editor for you. Personally I couldn't get past the fact that it looks more like some HTML webpage I'm coding instead of a block of text/paper/short story unless you use a split pane to have the markdown preview constantly showing.
Sublime Text is pretty good, but it's the farthest thing from free, neither like freedom nor like free beer. Although I think it's like winrar in that the trial period is indefinite but you should pay if using it professionally. This is assuming you're looking for a direct N++ replacement, i.e. that it does syntax highlighting and tab completion for a number of different languages.
sublime text is winrar-free
Sublime Text may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use. There is currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation.
Hey go easy on me pal, I'm just a first year compsci student who knows jackshit about Java
Not surprising, seeing as how the dev has a consistently anti-China history. He supported the boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on the Notepad++ website and called a 2019 version of it the "Free Uyghur" version.
Tech libertarians are ok sometimes. only the free software ones though, the rest can fuck off
yes lol. like RMS for example. even though he's probably vile as hell personally, i still am impressed sometimes at his dedication to free open source software
The programming -> disgusting little gremlin man pipeline is real, people. I'm currently sliding down it now and I'm starting to develop my own mischievous cackle.
RMS is not a tech libertarian. He even promoted Bernie Sanders while the primaries were ongoing.
A do-nothing loser like ESR is a FOSS tech libertarian
Also some dumbfuck decided he was the correct person to send the "Halloween papers" to.
Can someone explain to me, from a leftist perspective, why I shouldn't support Hong Kong's protests? They want to change a system that is 1) undemocratic and 2) created by an imperial superpower decades ago. Isn't that a struggle we should support?
You do know that they are attempting a bourgeois and reactionary break away from China and into the welcoming arms of global capitalism?
The rightist leaders want more slaves. More money. More blood. Bourgeois parliamentarianism. This isn’t about reform, or democracy - it’s a rightist autonomy movement, how could it be?
I’m very confused. There is autonomy, and it divides into two - left and right. How could you think that this “revolution” is a good thing for the left?
China has a large, tremendous position within the nightmare of global capitalism. Anyone can look at the planetary balance sheet and confirm this. Yet, China is still “socialist”, in the sense that there is socialism in the hearts and minds of the masses and leadership. This is clear. The Chinese state is acting, generally, in the interests of the masses.
Comrade, I have a feeling that there are major contradictions that you have not resolved with regards to China, and your own position within global capitalism. It is not enough to simply say all states are bad and then, in contradiction, creating new ones without doing a full class study. This cannot be leftism.
We all sympathize with Hong Kong’s protestors, who are of course real people, more than we do the Chinese state.
However - the rightist leaders do not have the authentic support of the masses. Their movement is tainted by the influence of imperialism. Because of this, they cannot be successful. They cannot bring any “national liberation”. Did the CIA amplify Hong Kong? Of course they did.
If the autonomy movement was left, or becomes left, then of course all of this changes.
Can't I critically support Hong Kongers in their desire for independence, while also criticizing the parts of their attempt that I find less than ideal? I understand that on the whole the Hong Kong protests aren't revolutionary, but I don't see how keeping their current, undemocratic system helps to further leftist goals. Like, China has the power to change the Hong Kong system to be more democratic, right? So why haven't they done that, and how does keeping Hong Kong undemocratic further socialist goals?
Fair enough, but what about Hong Kong's desire for independence is comparable to the CSA or fascists?
80% of Hong Kong does not want independence from China. They are Chinese. You are supporting a colonization project led by the UK & the US. Stop talking.
It’s comparable in that the desire for independence among all three groups isn’t by default a good thing.
Sure, no movement is inherently a good thing. But then all independence movements are comparable to the CSA/fascists. That doesn't seem like a very useful comparison.
Can’t I critically support Hong Kongers in their desire for independence, while also criticizing the parts of their attempt that I find less than ideal?
No. That makes you a useful CIA tool. I'm sorry if that's blunt or sounds mean but if you propagate their lies, if you attack their enemies and support their agenda and efforts they don't care a whit nor does it matter to the impressionable liberal a whit if you sign your support with an asterisk and several paragraphs of short-comings beneath it. Because you've picked a side, theirs and everything after that point will be ignored by liberals. It doesn't make you a reasonable centrist or enlightened person to accept the western propaganda's aim but compromise by rejecting specific points.
Why not critically support China while criticizing the parts you find less than ideal? I always find this interesting and it is a result of indoctrination and latent anti-communism, western chauvinism, and internalized capitalist propaganda, that your left-liberal will nod in agreement at the crimes of the US, at the fact the Democrats abet these horrible crimes and yet when the time for support comes they'll refuse support to socialist nations on the grounds the capitalist media told them they were committing atrocities and that they believe them. Yet many of them will still critically support the US, the Democrats, the efforts of the CIA which they acknowledge as less than perfect in an incredible show of charity to the CIA, to capitalist interests, to US hegemony and allies to it, that is strangely not extended to socialist nations that are less than perfect.
Also most Hong Kongers do not want independence[1] nor should they get it were they brainwashed enough to. Hong Kong is not an ethnic group, it is not a native or indigenous group of people put upon by colonizing forces. It is a colonial wound full of Han Chinese people left by the British after the century of humiliation, it should have been fully repatriated to China but the Chinese being overly reasonable and not in any position to wage a full war with western powers offered concessions, that it would be independent. The West by sewing anti-communist, anti-China propaganda there broke that bargain, the west by sponsoring a color revolution attempt broke that bargain. They teach their school children terrible lies about China in their curriculum. Hong Kong is Chinese land, now and forever. It cannot and will not be split off by western powers into a toe hold once more which is the whole point.
Like, China has the power to change the Hong Kong system to be more democratic, right?
De facto? Yes. They could roll the PLA tanks in tomorrow and the world would sob but no one could stop them nor would anyone mobilize any force to do so. But China abides by its treaties and laws or tries to unlike lawless nations such as the US. Even though it is an unfair treaty forced on them they are upholding it for the most part. And that's the point. If they did roll in and abolish the SAR state or just blatantly install Beijing underlings or otherwise change it the western media would be screaming, the US would sanction them, Britain would sanction them, etc. Also much of the investment and companies in HK who use it as an offshore base for entry into China would flee. China's wisest course of action is to allow things to continue, to attempt media outreach and education and hope the people of Hong Kong vote in a way that makes changes in their own favor. But it won't be easy, the powerful wealthy interests there who puppet these protests alongside the western government interests won't have it. Never forget what set these protests off was an extradition treaty with all the usual protections set off by a piece of shit man who murdered his girlfriend and fled there. China very much wants to play by the international rules, it wants to do this for its own benefit and to win disputes in international institutions as well as garnering international support. The African nations among others can see the US hypocrisy to China's good law abiding nature and it makes them favor China.
I think the problem we have run into here, that lead you to downvote my comment unfairly and uncritically, immediately, is that you do not yet have what I would call a leftist conception of democracy. You have a bourgeois conception of democracy because you live in the imperial core. You have not sufficiently revolutionized your own politics, in all honesty.
Bourgeois electoralism is simply the freedom for one class to oppress another with democracy. If one class is oppressing another, is the oppressed class truly democratized?
I think the problem we have run into here, that lead you to downvote my comment unfairly and uncritically, immediately
I didn't downvote you at all. I appreciate anyone that wants to have a conversation with me.
you do not yet have what I would call a leftist conception of democracy. You have a bourgeois conception of democracy because you live in the imperial core. You have not sufficiently revolutionized your own politics, in all honesty.
Could you recommend a book, or some other theory, that could help me reach a place where I can understand?
Absolutely. Mao Zedong writes very clearly on this.
A work that would be particularly relevant to Hong Kong would be of course inside Maoism itself.
There is a particularly relevant example here for Hungary. Please read the whole thing carefully, then move on to On Contradiction and other Maoist works. This is necessary to think clearly about China, Hong Kong, and so on.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_58.htm
Thanks a lot! I'll try to give this a good read sometime this week.
No problem. I'm used to people responding a bit emotionally; this is an emotional topic after all.
Can someone explain to me, from a leftist perspective, why I shouldn’t support Hong Kong’s protests?
Because the protests were of Hong Kong/UK's own making.
Check out the homelessness rates in HK vs Singapore. Both are basically the same place, yet Singapore has far more satisfied citizens because it has some level of guaranteed housing.
In HK the young people have to compete with international rich, so people can't afford shit. Not affording shit = people get angry = riot more.
Plus there's a whole host of problems with HKers still being taught history from old British textbooks--it's essentially brainwashing.
Also just empiricism. Look at the track record of white, western, anglo people and the pet causes that win their mainstream support. There has literally never been a righteous one. What makes you think this time is different?
you should
the annoyance is more directed over libs and conservatives who use the protests as a way to express their sinophobia and yellow scare, while not giving a single fuck about American BLM protesters and such
Then what's the problem with Notepad++ having a version name that supports the protests?
I don't know, I personally don't see any lol
it's okay you don't have to agree with every ML on this site! props on you for asking tho
I feel like theres some sexual pathology here where neckbeard libertarians think that "standing with HK" will get them an English speaking HK waifu
They did Charlie Hebdo? Wtf, I didn't know programmers could be so violent.
You know what they say. Engineers are disproportionately well-represented among terrorists.
