The most upvoted answer is some shit like this...
https://www.quora.com/How-irrational-was-the-Hong-Kong-protest-2019/answer/Sam-Qwato
Sam Qwato
Updated Aug 12, 2019 · Author has 4.5k answers and 5m answer views
(1) About this viewpoint
This is a view from a neutral Singaporean with no vested interest in HK, China, the West.
This is a view from an East Asian Confucian cultural heritage majority city state, a sister city state to HK.
This is a view from a person educated entirely in the Western heritage tradition, from Greek classics on.
I am a social liberal.
(2) Short answer:
Totally irrational.
Stealthy Western manipulation, feeding incredibly naive HK youths into mindless frenzy.
Read this: Sam Qwato's answer to How do Chinese tourists and onlookers view street protesters marching in Hong Kong?
(3) I ask young HKers to wake up from their delusion, from their giddy stupor.
To be sure, there are teething economic and social issues. Housing. Economic structural reforms. Sustaining global competitiveness. They need to be resolved by HKers, in collaboration with China. As in any realm of problem-solving, only people with skin in the game are the material actors, the rest, colorful noise.
Know that there are two classes of foreign agitators.
The first are the warm-&-fuzzy tree-hugging liberal idealistic activist types. They mean well, but these people have never solved any substantial problems in their lives, such as pesky hassles like forklifting 600m people out of famine and poverty in 40 years. One word: Naive. They live in comfortable Middle Class homes, and if they appear not well off, that is because they choose to be poor. This group may be annoying, but harmless.
The second group is built around a geopolitical agenda. Destabilizing an ascendant power that threatens their cherished cosy status quo. They had problems with China when it was dirt poor. They have problems with China now that it is rich. Wtf? Their glue of unity is not a secret formal hierarchical controlling organization. Their unity of purpose is abstract, bound by their broad self-interested geopolitical agenda. A sort of global “Deep state”, without the conspiratorial masonic mystique. Realpolitik. Hardball. Self-evidently, this group is stealthily, deviously dangerous. Well-funded. This group will infiltrate the more politically acceptable, more palatable abovementioned group. Stir the Machiavellian into the naive, and guess how the stew will simmer. This group is multifaceted: Media, political organs, intelligence agencies, international agencies, corporate behemoths, academia, think tanks, whatever. This group is in full veiled flourish in HK as I write this. Go parse the The Economist, WSJ, NYT, CNN, BBC, etc hubristic biases galore: the only worldview is Anglo / Western European.