They constantly rant about chinas surveillance and police state while trying to implement the same fucking thing themselves. Obviously they're doing it for the good. For the people. Against all the bad, the criminals. Gotta love the hypocrisy

https://heise.de/news/...

Surprise, surprise.

Those in power happily push for anything and everything that grants them more power.

It’s why we can’t have nice things.

@Root what will happen? Usually a revolution or war resets the system a bit. But our weapons are so cruel and efficient that a war would have a serious chance of ending it for everyone. I honestly don't think that democracy and politics are able to fix this. The surveillance side only has to win once and the people protecting their rights have to win all of the time.

@lolcube I don’t know.
War probably, but you’re right. It would be similar to rising up against China. Pistols, or more likely grocery bags vs tanks (pic related; Tiananmen Square). A government willing to use tanks won’t care about running over its citizens with them (or shooting them, poisoning, etc.), as history has shown countless times.

I don’t have an answer,
and I am afraid.

Especially now that the clamor for communism is so loud. People don’t know what they’re demanding, and by the time they do…

@Root well what a surprise. They've been teaching the evils of national socialism for years and didn't even mention what happened in the soviet union. If "the gulag archipelago" would have been mentioned in schools maybe we wouldn't have the communism problem as bad as we do now. Truth be told I am afraid as well. If the nazis wouldn't have gotten to power the communists would've overtaken Europe instead. I don't think that we ever solved the problems of the Weimar republic in Austria for example. We just bought time after the war and thought it was in the past but the polarization is beginning again.

And in addition we were naive enough to belive that with wealth comes democratization and liberty. Blinded by the weak workforces and cheap goods we financed a system that could've collapsed if it just had been left alone. The west created a monster.

@lolcube Unlike many hippies claim, violence is effective. The problem is just that once shit turns violent, whoever wins will necessarily be someone who is good at violence, and who is unlikely to willingly drop such effective means.

That's how Robespierre's terror came about in the French Revolution - and history does repeat over and over, not least because people always claim that it would be different "this time".

@Fast-Nop I agree though I think that history doesn't repeat. (no shit it doesn't literally but I mean figuratively) It's more like if it rhymes with itself. I think It's somewhat evolutionary, with changing pressures and when I say evolution I fully understand that evolution doesn't have a "goal". It's always tempting to predict the future by looking at the past, we're made to recognize patterns after all, but the truth is that we can't.

@lolcube It does repeat, on a deep level - too much to discuss that here, but Spengler's main work is impressive on that. Sure, outdated in details because it's a hundred years old, but not in the bigger picture. It's eerily on track.

I think we'd have better odds at guessing the future if we routinely asked what happened last time someone tried whatever is in question, but apparently, that's already asking too much.

Thing is bad if country we don't like because reasons does it, but perfectly fine and actually desireable if we're the ones doing it.

Hey this sound bad, stay safe tho.

@lolcube democracy failed already. It is no more than a farse to make people think that they affect anything

@iiii Democracy failed... Yeap especially during this pandemic

@johnmelodyme how are those children related to the statement? 🤔

@iiii actually that picture represent poor people...

@johnmelodyme welfare state != democracy.
that kind of thing doesnt exist in germany or belgium for instance. a democratic country, but a welfare state

an "emotion argument" is no argument at all

Well it is simple, society needs ti earn It's privacy.
We think privacy is a right, but we keep abusing it so we will eventually lose it.

The problem is a corrupted society that needs surveillance needs an uncorrupted third-party ti do the surveillance.

So we either need skynet or some aliens.

As long as people happily post all kinds of images with geotagging (from "my perfect gelato" to "look my naked child is so funny" [which is for obvious reasons not only due to privacy concerns a very dumb thing to do]) the discussion about privacy makes me have a stroke.

Total surveillance state - bad.

But what's even worse are people giving all this data away for free while happily believing their data is safe in their *cloud.

Or that Facebook actually cares for data privacy. And Instagram. And whatever social media platform/ insert whatever you like here.

We already have mass surveillance.

And I believe without a shred of doubt that it is used _non transparent_ by the government. The law just adds the necessary tid bits so they can use it in a broader context and transparently.

@IntrusionCM you just outlined the issues that are making some people like @Root think there is a clamoring for communism. There’s a clamoring for government that effectively tells businesses to respect their customers, workers, and ensure their supply chain is somewhat ethical and environmentally sustainable.

However, bad actors on the right and left are eager to take these problems that could be solved with moderate regulations and twist the solutions to be fascist or communist. The companies increase the probability of their own downfall by fighting reasonable regulation tooth and nail, because they have no long term vision.