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Cake day: August 14th, 2023

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  • It is, a lot of people just have pseudo mystical beliefs about how people will act when there is no state. They like to imagine everything bad about humans is capitalism/the state/insert Boogeyman, not that the state and laws exist because we tried the alternative and no system at all always does work out to might makes right. A warlord always moves in to fill the power vacuum.

    Some people are bastards and any system you create has to be created with the explicit assumptions that people are bastards. Some people just want to believe no one is a bastard or that there are not enough bastards to hurt the reasonable people. I think those people are wildly optimistic, and removing power structures does not remove the temptation to exert power or the ability, only one specific means.



  • No, I am proposing that sufficiently large groups of people have some right to self determination, to only be part of nations which they choose to be part of. I’m saying Hong Kong is culturally, philosophically, and historically distinct from the People’s Republic of China at this point, and pretending they’re not is silly. You’re talking as if, like, Singapore doesn’t exist, that if any city state exists that’s somehow an absurdity.

    Hong Kong has some shared history with China but not a shared philosophy. That’s why there’s the AND clause there. If you have shared history but not shared philosophy, it’s merely imperialism with a patina of historicity, i.e., “we should own this because we did at one point, regardless of the wishes of the people.” If you have shared philosophy but not shared history it may work out, but don’t be surprised when different cultures within your state react to issues in ways that are informed by their differing histories.

    You are effectively saying that you don’t have an issue with colonialism, just that the wrong people were doing it before and now the right people can do it. I’m saying that the people of Hong Kong deserve self-determination if their political will is not represented in the state of the People’s Republic of China, which it will not be.