201–210 of 425 posts
The fact that this being justified with the pretense of being "for the children" seems like such a transparent way to play on people's emotions. From the start of the proposal itself: "At least one in five children falls victim to sexual violence during childhood 3 . A 2021 global study found that more than one in three respondents had been asked to do something sexually explicit online during their childhood, and ov…
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I expect initially only those who are unpopular and unlikely to be defended by the public will be prosecuted. Then over time more political enemies (probably starting with "trans women aren't women" activists) will be prosecuted and the slow slide begins...
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…? No? It indicates that the anti-discrimination law permits you to discriminate, so long as you have a good reason for it. I'll add: the current fuss about "protecting women's spaces" is pointless, because the right they're arguing for already exists , and the people running shelters by-and-large aren't invoking it . If they want domestic violence shelters to refuse service to trans people (who are, btw, more often…
> I'll add: the current fuss about "protecting women's spaces" is pointless > rather than just appealing to hypothetical situations These aren't hypothetical situations. In some jurisdictions, prisoners are housed based on their self-declared "gender identity". So men who declare themselves as women are being incarcerated in the female prison estate. Women inmates have been raped, sexually assaulted, and even impregn…
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This is whataboutism and derails the conversation. These two things are unrelated.
1. Why do you think 'whataboutism' is a bad thing? It is comparison. Comparison is a fine tool for reasoning about policy. Not the end of the conversation, but something to consider. 2. The corruption of EU politicians is a major concern. If they think so little of privacy that they are willing to vote for laws like this, then they should certainly have to defend why they get any privacy at all. Corruption in governm…
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…
I'm totally fine with raising their paychecks by a factor of 10 for their loss of privacy if we implement this... the amount of money we'd save elswhere dur to less corruption would be a few orders of magnitude higher.
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…
Public position = gate to corruption, license and regulation = gate to corruption. Do not expect the ones who make the laws to make them against themselves. That is idealist thinking. If history teqches something is that the more of those, the more corruption and handing of favors and "legal corruption" pops up. It is not by chance. It is just bc of how incentives are aligned. Those incentives, IMHO, can only be dest…
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Ah yes because we saw how easy it is to leave the EU for the UK even though it still has its own currency. Realistically current EU countries are locked in. They aren't allowed to reintroduce their own currency, but doing so is step one towards leaving.
Of course it is not easy, but if it feasible for questionable reasons as in the UK case, certainly it will be more feasible in case of existential threats.
By the time a regime reaches "existential threat" level it's too late. You're already far gone, any and all political opposition has been driven underground and the regime has loyalists in place in all institutions and positions of power. There is no way to organize any resistance because attempts to do so are crushed immediately, the press is controlled and you're in the minority anyway because the majority are propagandized and kept in fear of instability or supposed external threats to their way of life.
The EU is frankly far too close to that dystopian end already. It constantly justifies its own power via reference to external enemies of various kinds e.g. capitalist America, the European press barely challenges it and the institutions are controlled by EU loyalists who are willing to rip up the rules rather than let the EU lose control. Even in the UK that was always more distant than other nations, they went through multiple severe constitutional crises triggered by Remainers fighting to overturn the referendum. It wasn't at all clear that the UK could actually leave despite the referendum result not being in doubt.
IMO the very fact that you think the UK left for "questionable reasons" is already part of the propaganda doing its job. The people who get out early are the only ones who actually can get out. By the time the case is unambiguous (to you), you're the one being labelled as questionable.
I keep asking, who is going to stop me from encrypting a message and sending it to my wife? Who, and how? I can only conclude that some utterly dystopian tech needs to be developed to uphold this law. Why is everybody so focused on the "Oh this is so bad!"... What if this law passes? It's completely impossible right?
how: by stopping you from installing the software needed, which is the part that worries me.
And if I do use encryption, am I a criminal now? Will they come after me, hit me with a $5 wrench [0] to force me to give up my keys? Only to find me telling my wife I love her with that special feeling of nobody else listening in? You know, like from my mouth to her ear. As we can do at home? Will they soon start to listen in on my home to prevent key exchange parties with my friends? I find the (imagined) consequences of enforcing this law insane. I just don't see it happening in this society. And if it does happen, society will be very different.
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…
I'm totally fine with raising their paychecks by a factor of 10 for their loss of privacy if we implement this... the amount of money we'd save elswhere dur to less corruption would be a few orders of magnitude higher.