The last two paragraphs are entirely about the fire, and don’t engage with the anger at all - which was the subject of the headline.

It’s like I was watching a news segment where they stop reporting and cut to a talking head who started analyzing political responses to the fire.

How much Chinese companies are donating to relief efforts and the political parallels of an election being delayed (covid before, the fire now) are tangentially related, but in my opinion, that’s no longer focused on “Anger swelling in Hong Kong over deadliest fire in more than 70 years”.

TL;Dr: They want the Hong Kong leader to focus on the renovation company’s possible corruption, not the bamboo that didn’t burn.

The Hong Kong leader responded to the fire by promising to replace (traditional Hong Kong) bamboo scaffolding with (mainland China) steel, because they’re claiming it might have been an accelerant.

Residents argue that this is a distraction (most of the bamboo is still standing) from the real issue: the company doing the renovation/maintenance seems shoddy/corrupt and should be investigated.

At this point, the article gets unfocused and jumps around a lot.

By the end, she’s talking about the upcoming elections being compromised by the Chinese government.

All of your comments in my inbox are immature attacks.

Since you’re not even trying to engage in an argument with me, I’m blocking you.

Wealthy capitalists, if they’re not based in the US

Are you talking about this part? If so, what I was saying was that billionaires moved to either the US or the three countries I mentioned.

That means the billionaires from China also did not move to Taiwan.

You can also look at the wiki for Taiwan’s billionaires. Only one was born in China and not Taiwan (Hong Kong, specifically), and I’m pretty sure he moved to Taiwan way before the events we’re taking about in this thread.

That would be… so lame.

why the fuck would you bring it up as a reason to think Ukraine isn’t losing?

I was bringing it up as a reason to think the case for Russia winning wasn’t a clear slam dunk.

Resorting to conscription to fill your ranks is not something you do when you’re “obviously winning”.

And before you make a claim about Ukraine resorting to conscription, too, at no point have I claimed Ukraine was “obviously winning” either.

This was the statement I was responding to:

It’s basically an island that all the wealthy capitalists ran away to after China imposed economic democracy.

Here was my response :

Wealthy capitalists, if they’re not based in the US, have moved to [Singapore (or Switzerland, or the UAE)], not to Taiwan.

Where was what I said dishonest or irrelevant?

Edit: reorganized for legibility

It’s possible, but he didn’t say that, and our argument continued without your help.

It is weird that you’re white-knighting so hard for him.

Why are you here?

I was saying that the billionaires were not moving to the island of Taiwan.

You’re talking about US Empire, which, as mentioned in my other responses in this thread, is irrelevant to the physical movements of billionaires.

Even if Taiwan declared itself to be US Empire island #76, it would not change the fact that billionaires did not move to the island of Taiwan.

The NPR article I linked above was citing a Russian source.

The AP article was citing Russian legislation, which I assume (and I could be wrong) is public record.

I usually try to cite multiple sources because one or all may be biased, but it’s less likely that multiple sources will misrepresent reality in exactly the same way.

It is possible, but it is less likely.

I quoted all three in my original response, and he only responded negatively to the one based in UK, implying that he considered the other two met some minimum standard of quality.

He also quoted those same sources in his responses to me. If he thought the same way you do, I would have expected him to dismiss them outright, like you are.

I didn’t say either of those things you’re saying.

This is what I said :

I’m sure Ukraine is in a similar position, but it doesn’t sound like a clearcut win for Russia, either.

Whether or not Ukraine has kidnapping squads doesn’t mean Russia can’t also be having manpower issues.

Both can be true at the same time.

I think you are nothing more than a troll who argues for the sake of it, without a single honest bone in your body. You are the epitome of a reddit debate bro

You won’t or can’t address my argument above, so you switch to personal attacks.

You introduced the word “press-gang” and tried to turn this into an argument about the dictionary definition of the word.

You also tried to retroactively rewrite my argument. (You’re not talking about the draft, you’re talking about the reserves. You’re not talking about the draft, you’re talking about “calling up to the front line.”)

And you claim that I’m trolling?

My position has been that Russia has been coercing citizens into military service and I’ve been consistent on that point.

An intermediary.

A native of a colonised country who acts as the agent of the coloniser.

I don’t get the point you’re trying to make.

I said the wealthy capitalists went to not!Taiwan because the billionaires in Taiwan were already there.

Who is or is not a comprador has nothing to do with where wealthy capitalists relocate.

That’s three times now. We’ll add:

• Claiming I’m trying to “fabricate a narrative” as if there’s some massive conspiracy.

to the list.

Do you seriously think I’m some part of some government operation to “weave a story”?

I’m a rando on the internet who thinks Russia is coercing men who don’t want to be in a war to become soldiers.

Whether they corner them with infrastructural tactics or send armed men in unmarked vans to kidnap them off the street is immaterial.

Whether these tactics are practiced by Russia or by “many nations, including US allies” is immaterial.

It would be press-ganging and coercion if Ukraine did the same thing. It’s press-ganging and coercion if the United States does it.

Standing on ceremony behind a dictionary definition and whether government says it’s legal is such a weird stance to take when the issue is these people don’t want to serve in the military, and the government is coercing them into it.

You’ve tried to move the goalposts twice now, by:

• Claiming my argument is about a “call up to the front line”. (I’ve said draft/conscription since the beginning.)
• Claiming my argument is that an increase in conscription is happening. (I implied press-ganging was happening, and said nothing about a change in the amount of conscription happening.)

I am and have been ignoring anything you threw out that tried to weasel away from the central argument:

The Russian government is coercing (which is how press-ganging is used to mean in normal conversations; this is not an academic conference) people into military service.

Conscription/the draft already technically meets that definition, but piling on prison sentences, suspending drivers licences, banning leaving the country, and restricting bank transactions all make it clear that Russian men are being coerced into military service.

I think I see what you mean about Taiwan as a proxy state for the US.

I don’t think they see themselves as that, but they do basically owe their continued independence from China to the fact that the US values them as a pawn in the battle for global power.

You keep changing the argument you claim I’m making.

Here’s the comment, as a reminder.

I called into question your claim that press ganging (coercion into military service) wasn’t happening, by citing sources that the Russian government was changing the rules of the draft and imposing severe penalties on people who tried to avoid it.

Your responses have nothing to do with the parts of my comment that you’re quoting.

In the first quote (I wouldn’t take that as “given”) I was responding to your claim that Russia wasn’t press-ganging citizens into service. I then quoted two articles which themselves cited Russian sources (I’m pretty sure the State Duma is Russian) that said the Russian government was changing the draft rules and imposing severe penalties on people attempting to avoid the draft.

The second quote was pretty straightforward (I quoted the NPR and AP articles, since you seem allergic to reporting from the UK.), so I don’t know how you went from that to “confusing regular draft for reserves”, but I’ll respond to that, too.

I’m not confusing the regular draft for reserves. Both sources explicitly use the terms “draft” and “conscript” to describe the people I’m talking about.