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1456 points pulisse | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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yungcoder ◴[] No.21187453[source]
Between this and the NBA's capitulation to making the Rockets' GM retract his statements on Hong Kong, at what point does appeasement just become acceptance of China's behavior? Sure, from the individual business' perspective they don't want to risk alienating the Chinese government and losing the Chinese market, but if China sees that they can get their way by simply threatening foreign companies then it will just embolden them to push for more concessions down the road. Quite frankly this all stinks of 1930s European appeasement policy and we all know how that turned out.
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notzuck ◴[] No.21187714[source]
The appeasement policy was the right thing to do. The UK couldn't win a war in 1938 (no allies, no money, no air defence etc) and the bad taste of WW1 was still in peoples mouths.

The policy did fail because Hitler was going to go to war no matter what but that is only with 20/20 hindsight.

Appeasement wasn't the right policy, it was literally the only policy available to the UK at the time.

I agree that we need to take a hard line with China though, I can't see how this is going to end given their massive increase in military size and technology plus we are all so tied together financially that we could cripple each other long before a shot is fired.

My friends seem to think that war is the only way this will end and I've got a young son so I sincerely hope not.

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notzuck ◴[] No.21187741[source]
Thank you for the downvote. Much easier try to silence an opinion you don't like than leave a meaningful response. Why bother downvoting if you don't like what I said? This isn't reddit... or high school.

I just watched two history professors debate this very topic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmyecSXOla8

A very interesting watch because unlike hit and run downvoters, I am interested in learning.

side note: I now don't know what I think - both arguments were very good.

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1. humanrebar ◴[] No.21187817[source]
I didn't downvote, but "peace in our time" isn't the same as "let's buy a few years and then get some Nazis". It's also extreme Monday morning quarterbacking.

And it's plausible that anything short of Churchillian intransigence would have lost that war. Even a "smarter" craftiness could have failed.

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2. DuskStar ◴[] No.21187877[source]
Thought experiment - if you're Chamberlain, and want to postpone the war with Germany for a few more years while you build an army - what exactly do you say in a speech? "We're currently too weak to fight, but we'll get there" is not the sort of thing that I would expect to result in postponing war.