New Myanmar’s junta has cut off internet/mobile in 22 townships | Hacker News Reader

New Myanmar’s junta has cut off internet/mobile in 22 townships

yac.news

Tangentially, what's up with what we call that country in English?

"Myanmar" is the standard modern name and "Burma" is the name from the British colonial times.

However, we have to realize that the R in "Myanmar" reflects British phonetics and should therefore be silent. No, NPR correspondent, it's not "My Ann Mar," it's more like "Maa Maa."

Second, the renaming to "Myanmar" was approved by the ruling junta. Using that spelling for the country's name is like calling Taiwan "Chinese Taipei." Is it ethical to give this name credibility?

Finally, "Burma" and "Myanmar" are actually the same place name, written in two different orthographies. The latter prefers an archaizing pronunciation that the junta favors.

So, why still "My Ann Mar, previously known as Burr Mah"?

Colonialism, along with a great deal of inertial, mostly. There's a long long list of things that English pronounces "wrong".

Thank you for helping me update my pronunciation!

Like Uyghur. I absolutely hate anglophone reporting in their plight because of how they butcher that name into oblivion.

How do you know all this? Super interesting. Do you know this level of detail about the names/languages of any other countries?

/Subscribe.

I mean, this degree of knowledge barely rises above bar trivia. There are lots of people whose jobs or studies give them an interest in the affairs of some region or another. I'm sure you can find some wonk's blog just by searching for <country name> + "current events." Lots of international studies students write blogs.

In the entire history of mankind, has there ever been a case where the good guys have tried to cut off civilians' ability to communicate?

I imagine by definition cutting access makes them not good guys?

I can think of a few things I read on hn:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26023402 (India)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2879546 (San Francisco)

> I imagine by definition cutting access makes them not good guys?

Fair question, so how about either that they were the good guys, or that they would have been other than this one action?

He probably meant guys who call themselves good. Like preaching their exceptionalism while killing and otherwise fucking up truckloads of "they hate our freedoms" people.

No, that's not at all what I meant.

One distinction between the 2 cases is

1. In India they cut off all internet, even those provided by private players.

2. In SF, they cut off government installed repeaters. The private internet was accessible.

> In the entire history of mankind, has there ever been a case where the good guys

"Good guys"? What does this mean?

if you're not sure it means you should carefully consider your ethics.

If you're so sure, then you should be able to provide recent examples and justification for their actions.

Everyone's ethics are their own. If you can't decide what is good and what is bad that's a personal failing. Relying on other people's sense of good and bad is also a failing. Thats why you need to consider your own ethics.

All right. Let's take that as a given truth for now that ethics are not universal, and are instead individual. Using your own ethics, I'd ask that you provide some recent examples as well as justification for those actions.

please be specific in addressing what I said to you. You're asking for examples of something I never spoke about.

In history, over the long term, it typically means "whoever won".

Cutting off your enemy’s communications has always been important. Most authoritarian governments decide eventually that their biggest enemy, outside of wartime, is their own people

being the "good guy" is subjective and history is written by the winners. plenty of parties in both sides of war have tried bombing or disrupting communication and logistic assets in order to win a war.

Obvious example during WW2 both sides did it. So unless we are all passing around the bong and both sides can not be the good guys, then yes the good guys (Either the Nazis or the Allies) did it. The good guys do it all the time.

A example where the good guys (Unless you support the genocide I guess) didn't do it -

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/13457754/RwandaD...

As the genocide was taking place, the United States military drafted a plan to jam RTLM's broadcasts, but this action was never taken, with officials claiming that the cost of the operation, international broadcast agreements and "the American commitment to free speech" made the operation unfeasible

Facebook also didn't do it to stop the “the hallmarks of genocide,” in Myanmar

https://time.com/5197039/un-facebook-myanmar-rohingya-violen...

We're literally in the middle of a culture war in which some good guys are trying to censor some bad guys on social media. Not that I neccessarily agree or disagree with that labeling.

In case of war the communication is censored.

just like australia, basically.

Mm, nope not like that at all.

No, it has many similarities.

From the article:

> Junta soldiers are also accused of engaging in the brutal murder of a local pastor and several gang rapes of women and children. The junta is also systematically abducting the relatives of people it is seeking to arrest, including children as young as 20 weeks old. As of July, the junta has murdered at least 75 children ranging in age from 14 months to 17 years.

currently the australian police are only beating already defeated non violent protesters. Shooting them in the back with 'non lethal' ammunition. Beating people on the ground with the butts of their guns, or kneeing them from a run. Any of those things could already lead to deaths. The state intervened to make sure no one could livestream events, or cover them from the air, to protect their shock troopers from consequences of their actions for the state. Give them some time and no punishment and who knows where it will go, except that it will escalate.

It's not currently the same, but it has many similarities. Government out of control, state brutality against innocents. If none of the australian police are punished for their behaviour it will escalate because that is the nature of people.

There is a reason people fetishized liberty, but it seems many forgot.

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