Re:Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
by yungcoder on Monday October 07, 2019 @10:02PM
(#21187956)
Well even if having the resources of the largest colonial empire in history wasn't enough to allow the UK to win a war in 1938, what about in 1933? 1934? 1935-37? When the Germans seized the Rhineland in '36 they could have been easily steamrolled by a French-British alliance and that would have been the end of Nazi Germany then and there. Nazi Germany was only able to become the juggernaut it was because of the years of appeasement leading up to that point and I think we can agree by the time they became an apparent threat it was already too late. What I'm saying is if the parallel holds with China today, we are barreling towards 1938 at alarming speed and this time I don't think the world can afford to be wrong again.
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.
it's considered bad form to discuss votes. the link itself would have been enough
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Re:Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
by on_and_off on Monday October 07, 2019 @10:18PM
(#21188033)
Agreed. I wish that HN would force people to write a comment explaining why they are downvoting.
Alas, that would generate more petty bickering about downvotes. Heaps more.
Re:Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong
by humanrebar on Monday October 07, 2019 @09:31PM
(#21187817)
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.
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.
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.