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Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

(www.bbc.co.uk)
362 points ComputerGuru | 1 comments | 23 Dec 17 12:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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mutteraloo ◴[23 Dec 17 14:29 UTC] No.15994264[source]▶
Lest we forget, this is still the same government that mowed down 10,000 innocent lives, that still runs China today. They've gotten better at hiding behind marketing, propaganda, and strong arming other countries, but they're still ruled by a small, powerful group of elders that control every aspects of Chinese people's lives.

It's sad that we keep feeding this dangerous psychopath which threatens democracy and freedom worldwide. This psychopath will eventually cause harm to a few countries (Taiwan, South Korea) when said and done, maybe enable North Korea to strike a few nuclear missiles into Los Angeles or Tokyo, who knows.

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osdiab ◴[23 Dec 17 15:56 UTC] No.15994637[source]▶
I’m not Chinese, but I did live there for a bit. If you haven’t already I suggest you take the time to get acquainted with Chinese culture, modern history, and modern Chinese lifestyle. In recent times there have been significant human tragedies there for sure, but given the historical context they feared to relive, and the incredible gains they’ve made in recent years, you can think of their actions as real large scale cases of “the ends justify the means” and “putting the greater good ahead of the individual.”

Still lots of morally reprehensible stuff that cannot be excused, and its a pity they rely on rewriting history and suppressing subversive thought to preserve the government’s legitimacy, but to assume that China is some kind of giant hellish labor camp, and that our frankly ineffective and destructive forms of Western democracy are the only true answers to the world’s problems, is short sighted, blindly dogmatic and ignorant of the way the world works these days.

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lostlogin ◴[23 Dec 17 19:18 UTC] No.15995730[source]▶
>the ends justify the means

> lots of morally reprehensible stuff that cannot be excused.

Which is it?

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osdiab ◴[23 Dec 17 22:49 UTC] No.15996715[source]▶
Unjust or immoral actions can ultimately have on balance positive ends. What you decide to do is a matter of your philosophy, but in most significant cases none of your choices are completely moral.
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lostlogin ◴[24 Dec 17 01:49 UTC] No.15997435[source]▶
Choosing to turn 10,000 people into ‘pie’ would seem a fairly black and white case. Do you think it possible to justify? You don’t seem whole against it.
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1. osdiab ◴[28 Dec 17 11:40 UTC] No.16021521[source]▶
I’m not saying it’s moral. Obviously I would prefer my government to not do this sort of thing. But I am saying that the motivations are understandable with historical context and that the legitimacy of a government’s decisions go deeper than just a binary good or bad judgment; and that all governments face these sorts of decisions at some point. For instance, any time the USA intervenes militarily or economically elsewhere, it is an unavoidable calculation that some (potentially large) number of innocent people on those countries will suffer or die. To ignore the obvious example of all of America’s armed conflicts since WWII, embargoes on North Korea, for example, have likely lead to a huge amount of suffering and death in that country, but our governments have deemed it worth it to some extent. How do we make decisions in these cases?