2008 Olympics- Tibet & China

I think most people would have heard of the recent turmoil in Tibet that is giving China an immensely bad image in the followup to the 2008 olympics, an event that most Chinese would have been looking forward to since.. ages ago.
Anyway, it seems like most of this could become spoiled by the one event.
To cut it short, what's your opinion on the situation? Should China simply give up and let Dalai Lama and his people have "greater autonomy", or maybe give police a longer leash in dealing with the riots.
I guess you could tie this is with Taiwan, and how China again won't accept Taiwans claim to freedom.
Personally I support China in both aspects, both in Tibet and Taiwan, as I think you would find alot of people that live in China at the moment or just in general. I may be wrong- corrent me

Two things need to happen: 1. China needs to stay the fuck out of Tibet and give them complete independence and 2. The Dalai Lama needs to shut his mouth and step down as "exiled leader". He has done nothing to help the situation , all he's done is told "his" people to not ask for complete independence, but more autonomy and to stop the violent protests. Right, because a country where it's police force uses political prisoners as black market organ donors is really going to react appropriately to peaceful protest.

He really has no idea what he's talking about, does he? Is he really naive enough to believe that anything but complete seperation from that fascist, pseudo-communist country will do any good? If so then he is a complete fool.

Oh and fuck the Olympics, it is a farce pretending to foster international relations and world harmony, but really all it does is build un-ecologically friendly sporting arenas, force city police forces to harass the homeless and allow those many advertising conglomerates some free publicity and advertising.

You have to realize that the position of Dalai Lama doesn't only encompass political leadership, but spiritual leadership as well. For him to be deposed or to step down would put Tibet in an even worse situation than they're already in. As you said, peaceful protesting isn't going to do anything, except get more monks and innocent people brutalized and murdered, but if they were to forcefully protest against China's sovereignty it will only result in an even larger massacre. There is no chance of Tibet gaining complete independence from China, short of an armed intervention by other nations. Considering the state of the world, international armed conflict with China and other nations would be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. The Dalai Lama is aware of that and I truly doubt he would want Tibet to be the spark that ignites World War 3.

I'm aware of his religious position and power and that's what frightens me more. When your political leader is your spiritual leader as well, it never leads to anything good.

And about China vs the world...thats not going to happen. No country in the world is stupid enough to start an open conflict with China and China now controls most of the first world's debt, so they would gain nothing from conflict, they could just destroy anyone economically. The only thing that would work is a multilateral NATO(lol!)intervention. The reason this will work is if the world community as a whole puts enough pressure on China, they'll cave at least somewhat, since they are desperately trying to clean up their image in preparation for the olympics and of course their inevitable ascent to Super Powerdom this century.

Though I'm not naive enough to believe that will actually happen.

I would definetly agree that we're a long way off another global war, but I think you might find that you misunderstand the current situation. Tibet has been a part of China for a long time and to most people its just another province, for example how people in Texas might view those in California or something. If one state were to suddenly demand complete rights as a country, its own serparte government, a president or politcal leader or whatever then of course there are going to be a few raised eyebrows.
Most of the news coming toward Western audiences comes from IMO extremely biased sources- mainly groups that support the separation. What really gets me annoyed is people in countries as separated from the situation as India, in schools rallying for freedom or something. Its just stupid, it doesnt even remotely involve them.
And while China comes under alot of criticism for its Communist party, etc etc the fact is that the nation simply could not become entirely democratic like other countries. I doubt most people understand the actual situation. The brutal truth is that most of the Chinese population is rural, and I know for a fact that in general they are not intelligent enough to make a reasonable decision in an election. And thats a worry when they hold most of the voting power..
Peaceful protests or whatever I have to admit that there is almost no way China would stop the suppression of the current riots. The are far from "peaceful". While you might see a level of restraint now I'm pretty certain you can expect to see alot more controversy after the olympics.

Your right, we do get a biased view from over there, biased towards human rights and political sovereignty.

And why cant people from far off nations support their fight for independence? So what if it doesnt affect them directly? So your saying during our own revolution that no one should have supported us in our endeavors because it didnt directly affect them. We're all human beings and thus there will always be a sense of solidarity between people even separated by large gulfs of geography and culture.

And I am stunned by your comment about how the people of China are to stupid to make political decisions. Thats because they live in a fascist nation! Of course they're not going to be educated, the old saying "knowledge is power" holds true. Once again, I'll use our own country's history as an example. So by your logic we should have become a communist nation after we broke away from England, because our population was largely rural folk. That was why we began attempts to establish a nation wide school system, because people were uneducated. It took a long time to get it right, but we finally did. And I would think that the Chinese people, if ever they move away from their current governmental system that they would attempt to do the same.

Oh and Tibet has desired it's independence for some time, since, you know, they are comprised of a completely different ethnic group with a totally different culture.

Actually I meant that despite most media advocating "freedom of speech" and "human rights" the fact is that media in even the best of countries will be biased to an extent for the sake of earning money.
And of course what i think you might not understand is that China is far different from the States. Its not my logic that America should become a communist nation after people migrated from America- American history and CHinese differ far too greatly for any real comparison. China's spans a few millinia more than America and I think that speaks for itself. Furthermore the Communist system isn't that different from the Imperial System of government that had run China centuries before. There difference lies in that America rose to become the world's greatest superpower through military might whereas China only relatively recently had its huge economic growth. Its quite unreasonble to expect the larger half of the population to be educated just yet.
Finally again I disagree on your point that theyre a entirely separate. China holds many different cultural groups within itself. There are hundreds of different dialects and groups that exist other than the two main language: Kantonese and Mandarin. Of course there is going to be differences in ethic groups and culture. And the country is also populated by groups of that the Tibetians. It would callous to say that all people that live in Tibet desire "independance", and many of the current protesters are the extremists of the populace, with even their Dalai Lama opposing violence.

Just a last point, I was hoping this would be more of a discussion that a heated argument that looks like it might flare up into a swearing contest. Any offensive comments are unintended

It's funny, I had a Chinese roomate a few years back, and more recently another roomate of mine has done a lot of research in Chinese culture to go teach there. Let me clarify how the average Chinese citizen views this.. Tibet is a *conquered* nation. They were conquered in 1957 no matter how peaceful of an occupation it has been (Thank god for the Dalai Lama). In addition, China has done a LOT in funding the migration of poor Chinese citizens over to Tibet during the last 50 years )<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_settlements_in_Tibet> WikiEvidence</a>). So much so, that these Chinese people moved in now actually outnumber the native Tibetans in some Provinces, and THIS is why the Tibetans feel so threatened culturally.

They're nervous their cultural identity will be wiped out, and rightly so considering how the Chinese would love to be rid of Tibet national identity; it's a great way to pacify a conquered nation.

But the best analogy for my American cohorts in all of this.. would be like US having to deal with a Native (Indian) tribe demanding their ancestral lands back. The timeline is different, I'll admit, so many of you will be skeptical, but can you honestly imagine the US or the Chinese willing to give up the lands they've conquered with how much they've invested there? HELL NO!

Any sort of forced change will bring about war (probably civil within Tibet). And do you think the Chinese will sit idly by and watch their emmigrated citizens be hunky dory? Nah, they'll get involved supplying munitions and money.

So... because China won't leave (50 years of a conquered nation), because they've invested so much time and population, and because protesting the OPENING CEREMONIES in the Olympics really does nothing... nothing will change. Oh, except now some Tibetans are getting pissed at the Dalai Lama for his nonviolence creed and are getting rowdy.

To end with some Black Comedy, there'll be a new game in this years Olympics, "100meter Tear Gas Sprint".

I'd like to add that I don't think it matters if people in china are too dumb to vote. I think many people who vote here (the USA) are too dumb to vote too and nobody is trying to stop them.

I guess theres a point in that some people might not be informed enough to make the best choice in votes.
But what i see the boycotting and protesting of the olympic opening ceremony as just another bid for popularity by political figures who can only appeal to the over-zealous members of so-called "humanitarian" groups.
The most disappointing thing about the recent news coverage of the event is just how one-sided it is. Where I live I have yet to see one person on the news to give an opinion in support of China, instead the focus is on the "state-run" media and the "crackdowns" going on against the "non-violent protests" in Tibet. Non-violent is completely off the mark.
I agree with most people on the need to protect a different culture, and of course this goes back to how China still has issues within human rights, but this is improving- its no longer the same situation we had back in 1990, or during the Cultural revolution.
I had a feeling in my gut something like this would happen last year though, either the Olympics would turn out very well or could turn into a disaster. If this is the kind of problems leading up to the games there might be worse ones to come during the games. The last thing I want to see is an Olympics surrounded by soldiers and armed police.

Huh what? Voters are stupid? Negative my hombre, people on the whole are actually pretty smart and vote accordingly. You're just disenfranchised with the fact that they don't always agree with you. I have a high opinion of the average person and his or her ability to think. Almost any time you'd pick out one of your classmates, and say they vote idiotically, I'd counter with, then you just don't know them well enough and understand their underlying though process.

Just because you don't understand other people and their motivations, doesn't make them stupid. It just makes you ignorant. Don't believe me? If you're a social democrat, have a sit down and serious talk with a few social conservatives, and you can damn well bet most of their beliefs come from different motivations.

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Kingtipop - Not sure I agree with your view on humanitarian groups, but gotta agree with you on most parts.

Humans as a species are dumb, irrational, and violent. Regardless of motivation, their decisions are rarely ever in the best interest of the species. The simple fact of the matter is that human society, through all its advancements, has become so disillusioned about what we think we need, that we no longer acknowledge the fact that all we need, is food, water, and shelter. We don't need laws, we don't need governments, and we damn sure don't need all these technological advancements that make our lives tediously pointless. Food, water, shelter, and little common sense, that's all we need to have a fully functional society.

I know exactly what kind of responses I'm gonna get because I've heard it all before.

To quote James Madison,

"If men were angels, no Government would be nessisary"

Saying "Humans as a species are dumb, irrational, and violent" is like claiming that the average of -1 and 1 is 0. Sure if you combine all the believes and actions in the world, of course the things they believe in and way they deal with it are going to be dumb and irrational. I mean if city A bans public smoking, and city B gives benefits to smoking companies since the headquarters are all in that city, the sum total of those two cities would make no sense.

Your own arguements contradict themselves. You say we don't 'need' laws, governments, and technology and yet your first statement that we're "...dumb, irrational, and violent" gives us the justification for having laws and governments (and technology is a tool to make life overall better on a day to day basis). You think your life would be better if you had no running water? No form of mass communication? Maybe it would be simpler, but not better, you'd be a hick living in a village all your life struggling to survive against the wilderness and hoping some neighboring village didn't attack you.

I do relate to how you feel, because I feel the same way sometimes, but you lose scope of how many people are in this world and country and how real each of them are. The individual person could swear off all the advanced technology in the world, but getting 300 million americans or even 1 million to do the same? Impossible.

PS - What do you mean by human society though, that doesn't make sense. Maybe you mean Natural Law?

I'll address your last question first. I don't mean natural law, because natural law is a law or body of laws that derives from nature and is believed to be binding upon human actions apart from or in conjunction with laws established by human authority. What I mean by human society is humans as a species living as members of a community.

You kind of explained my "humans are dumb, irrational, and violent" statement in the beginning of your post. However, while it may be accurate, it isn't contradictory to state that we don't need laws and governments. The fact of the matter is, that humans came into this world as pack animals. They organized themselves into groups, tribes in a sense, and through those groups they would establish an alpha male and would work as a unit to ensure that they could all survive. There was a kind of structure, but don't get that confused with laws and governments. Laws and governments reside over a broad scope of people and cannot effectively manage to keep all those people in check. With such a system of "leadership" there are blindspots, corruption, etc..

I'm a pretty good judge of people and I can tell that you're a logical person and that you're satisfied, to an extent, with the level of comfort and your ability to survive in the present state of the world. There's nothing wrong with that, but the lives humans live today are way too cushy and easy-going. Life isn't supposed to be so easy that we can do things that are proven to be detrimental to our health, yet survive for nearly 4 times what the original life expectancy of a human was. What having all these technological advancements has done is adapt our natural instincts into practices that do nothing except destroy the world around us and weaken our natural ability to survive.

I won't deny that I take pleasure in my, somewhat, easy life. The thing is, that if modern technology were to fail tomorrow, how many of us would be shit out of luck. I was talking to my mom the other day about this same thing and I said, "If the world went back to the ways of old, all those fat and lazy people who can barely do anything for themselves, will cry for a while and then die of starvation." We both had a good laugh about that. I don't want to offend anybody, but the truth does sometimes hurt. If there was no running water, I wouldn't be all that broken up. I mean, we've pretty much destroyed any natural source of clean water, but I know how to survive if I needed to. Mass communication is overrated. The internet, television, radio, and all that shit are great things, but they are expendable. A simpler life would, most likely, shorten life expectancy, but the overall quality of life would be so much greater. If someone couldn't survive against the wilderness, then so be it. Those who can survive do and those who can't, don't.

As for having the human population swearing off technology, that is but a pipe dream. It really is impossible and I wouldn't expect it to happen. What I mean is that if human society would go back to the methods before modern technology, it would have to be by force. Most humans are too superficial to imagine life without a coffee maker, let alone a stove or microwave. Like I said before, I enjoy my life with technology, but I'm not so attached to it that I couldn't live without it.

I guess on the face of it most politicians would try to give this image of being very pious and what not. The role of religion in our society i think has become far too unbalanced- a christian candidate has a much higher chance of becoming president than an atheist, and significantly much higher than say, a muslim.
To sleepyone:
I would like to believe that even the majority of any population around the world is intelligent enough to select the most appropriate leader for say, overall improvement of a society. But, i think the fact that Bush was elected twice already shows that maybe thats wrong. I dont know too much about his actions but it just seems like Iraq, and his diplomacy doesn't work in favour of the US. To me any sort of election always seems like a popularity contest- who appeals to the largest group in the population, which means bringing tax cuts despite the obvious downside, or making numerous promises to improve society etc.

Yea I wasnt 100% sure on the statistics because its been months since i read the article.

SleepyOne: I'm a little insulted that you would just assume from what little I said that I was such a close minded person. I simply have a more pessimistic attitude about the way the universe operates.

This includes disagreeing with The Jesus that going back to living naturally (at least as far back as he's talking about anyway) would do us any good. Humans have simply artificially evolved ourselves through technology too much for this to work, unless you're willing to accept that 60% or more of the human species would die off and as we should all know by now, any plan that you don't have to use to ensure the survival of humanity that calls for such a death toll is a bad plan even if that it the only thing wrong with it due to the choas that is caused by the direct and side effects of that many people dying. At this stage in human evolution it is sadly too late to go back to the way we used to be and our only real choice is to embrace that fact that we are technologically dependent and to slowly change the world around us into a better environment for us to live in. Now of course there are endless ways to do that and certainly some of those way would call for us to purposely regress in certain ways. (Btw I don't think discussing any of these possible ways to move forward would be doing any of us any good as I'm still talking about a process that would take a long time and most likely involve technologies that we aren't even close to achieving at this time.)

Also, to clarify my statement about people being dumb, you might have wanted to ask my what my standards were before making an assumption. I don't know what you people here would say but, most of the people I know would agree that even though I'm no genius, I'm fairly intelligent. I would judge that the level of intelligence that I have is rather below what one could hope for as I am rather uninformed on a great variety of topics and unable to comprehend without difficulty a fair portion of "higher learning" topics. However, sadly every person I have ever met and often (but not always of course) those who I have heard of who is without a doubt (and those who I have doubt about as well) more intelligent than myself are lacking in some intellectual aspect to myself often as not in some major way that if unchecked by other people in their lives who do have that which they are lacking would find life a very difficult process or they simply are less capable at doing a wider variety of things that I can do. Of course I am assuming the thing that we posses that we call "common sense" is an intellectual aspect, otherwise a fair number of those people are off the hook and are just downright more intelligent than I am. Also I have noticed (though mostly in my later years since I was not clever enough to notice earlier in life) that I apparently possess roughly 3-4 times the average (the average of ever person I have ever met, obviously, as I cannot judge those who I have not met in this capacity in any way at all) amount of "common sense" as a regular person. I'm not trying to be particularly boastful, I simply find myself too often in situations where I can clearly tell that an action or plan of some kind is a bad idea and often enough I can tell people several (if not everything) wrong with said action/plan and (here's my favorite part, lol) they'll still do it anyway. Note that I don't mean just my peers, this has happened with people of all ages about half of which include adults who I consider fairly intelligent people. I've also noticed that despite having this (theoretically) above average capability I still get myself into situations which I could have easily avoided and think that it's disappointing that I don't have more "common sense". In conclusion you can see why if I think of myself as acceptable but not particularly good in intellectual areas and other people think of me as intelligent and I feel that I have a quality that is far beyond the average and yet still not up to my own standards that I would find the average person dismayingly lacking, assuming I am to believe what my senses and reasoning abilities tell me about others and the accounts of other people (If these are in fact not the tools we should use to judge things than we're all pretty much hosed anyway and it doesn't matter a bit what I think since in that case we're walking around with no idea of what's really going on).

Damnit, you guys made me rant.