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The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

mullvad.net

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Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#41

Post by ShroudedNight »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #36
jay_kyburz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really dumb thing to say and it really undermines the power of every day people to have a say in how our world is run. The Government is our voice and our strength, and we are going to need that voice heard and our will exercised in the coming years. We need to stop undermining our governments, we need to get money out of politics, and we need to sort out our democracies.

Unless you can actually address what I wrote, explain why it is a "really dumb thing to say", I'll chalk that up to you being bewildered and terrified by the truth in what I say. That's okay, many people are completely subservient to authority, dependent on the government, want to be ruled and protected. I pass no moral judgement in my comment, merely explain why the EU is desperate to surveil their own citizens.

Hazarding a guess: the 'really dumb thing' is portraying democratic government as a distinct, foreign, hostile, and alien entity that any sane and morally upstanding person would minimize their interaction with, barely giving theirs 'unto Caesar' and getting away as quickly as possible. It teaches and reinforces apathy and learned helplessness when it comes to effecting change on matters of public policy. Ultimately, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#42

Post by pohuing »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #34
mongol wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is EU commissioner Ylva Johansson. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do. She is not elected to this position, but appointed, and in this case by a former government who is no longer in power.

EU seems to have an abundance of unelected regulatory positions. Eurosceptics are right in that EU represents a form of non-democratic decision-making which has the power to supersede (more) democratically formulated laws from member states. Ideally, the autocratic tendencies of the EU and the member states should cancel out by disagreeing with each other, but in reality member states seem unwilling to oppose them mo…

Partially yeah, as well as the complete lack of legislative initiative for the parliament, the only part that's directly elected by citizens.

On the other hand though: Europeans kinda suck as a blob. See Italy electing fascists again, Germany stagnating for decades under Conservative control, basically everything east of Germany etc. Etc. The parliament is dominated by Conservative authoritarian forces as well. In that sense EU legislature is just too good at representing it's people.

I gave a speech to my computer science course when the new copyright directive was about to go into its final trilogue round in 2018. Wide agreement in discussion afterwards, but not a single student cared enough to make their wishes known to their MEPs. If even they don't do it, i can only say we're getting what we asked for.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#43

Post by ShroudedNight »

peyton wrote: post #39
jay_kyburz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really dumb thing to say and it really undermines the power of every day people to have a say in how our world is run. The Government is our voice and our strength, and we are going to need that voice heard and our will exercised in the coming years. We need to stop undermining our governments, we need to get money out of politics, and we need to sort out our democracies.

I prefer popular sovereignty. You can support a government.

How does popular sovereignty work without some collective entity imposing accountability on bad actors?

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#44

Post by Fricken »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #20
maxilevi wrote: post #7

Why every 12 months the European Commission comes up with a total dumb and authoritarian proposal and we have to actively fight it? It’s just tiring

Because any government's primary objective is to secure the power of the government, and most governments including western "democratic" ones view their people as the biggest threat to that objective. Which they are right about, mind you.

Any institution's primary objective is to secure it's own power (the second is to expand those powers). It's as true for governments as it is for corporations, religions, and even the home gardening club.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#45

Post by negidius »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #32
throwawaylinux wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because any government's primary objective is to secure the power of the government, and most governments including western "democratic" ones view their people as the biggest threat to that objective. Which they are right about, mind you.

This is a really dumb thing to say and it really undermines the power of every day people to have a say in how our world is run. The Government is our voice and our strength, and we are going to need that voice heard and our will exercised in the coming years. We need to stop undermining our governments, we need to get money out of politics, and we need to sort out our democracies.

Calling things you disagree with "really dumb" is not an effective way to change minds.

Unless you are part of the 0.01% richest (or something like that), governments are not your voice or strength, and you have essentially no ability to influence their actions. Governments are composed of politicians and other people who will act in what they consider to be their own best interest. Those interests will generally be very different from the interests of most other people.

Getting money out of politics is impossible. Politicians are not going to vote to make themselves less well off, and lobbyists will rarely fund the campaigns of those who would make lobbying less effective.

Instead of looking to governments for solutions to problems they are neither capable of solving nor willing to solve, we should try to solve those problems by voluntary cooperation whenever possible.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#46

Post by whitemary »

cardosof wrote: post #11

If I lived in the EU I'd want to know who are proposing this kind of stuff and help with anything that gets them far from public and government -related jobs forever, but hey, that's me. Lots of people like to give up a bit of freedom and privacy in exchange for an increased sense of security.

You won't get very far. The EU is an anti-democratic organization.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#47

Post by Supermancho »

photochemsyn wrote: post #30

Suggested alternative: The "End Political Corruption Proposal" "Given that political corruption is rife in European countries, with great detriments to the healthy function of government, all politicians in positions where they may be engaging in corrupt behavior must submit to 24-7 audio and video surveillance, which will be piped over public platforms for crowdsourcing of corruption detection. All personal communic…

> Suggested alternative: The "End Political Corruption Proposal"

I'm probably in the minority on HN, but I think this is a good thing. It should be a matter of course, in a democratic society. Free speech doesn't live solely in digital communication (universally owned by some company) any more than it does in the classified ads in a newspaper.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#48

Post by maxilevi »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #20
maxilevi wrote: post #7

Why every 12 months the European Commission comes up with a total dumb and authoritarian proposal and we have to actively fight it? It’s just tiring

Because any government's primary objective is to secure the power of the government, and most governments including western "democratic" ones view their people as the biggest threat to that objective. Which they are right about, mind you.

I agree. With this in mind, can government ever fully work?

It seems like it’s becoming a behemoth that will need to be killed and redesigned in the future, just like it happened in the past

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#49

Post by Jensson »

noduerme wrote: post #26
Spivak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only true if you give up once it passes. Then you only have to win once to get it repealed.

Explain that to anyone living under a dictatorship their grandparents originally supported.

The dictator has to beat down the rebellions every time, but the rebels only has to win once. Is that what you meant?

As long as there are people there will be struggles like this. Being on the winners side makes things easier, so losing once makes it harder to go back, but it isn't impossible since we have gotten here from much worse situations.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#50

Post by cryptonector »

Jensson wrote: post #49
noduerme wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain that to anyone living under a dictatorship their grandparents originally supported.

The dictator has to beat down the rebellions every time, but the rebels only has to win once. Is that what you meant? As long as there are people there will be struggles like this. Being on the winners side makes things easier, so losing once makes it harder to go back, but it isn't impossible since we have gotten here from much worse situations.

GP means that the dictator only needs to win without violence once, but the rebels -while it's true that they only need to win once- may have to resort to violence because the dictator certainly will resort to violence to crush its opposition.
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