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The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

mullvad.net

311–320 of 425 posts

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

#311
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look a bit deeper though; you'll find that greed can lead to good and bad outcomes. People make decisions because in some sense they feel like they will profit personally. That is basically the same as saying they do things for reasons. We know that most people aren't especially principled because they are regularly tested and don't make principle-based decisions. Nevertheless there is a great deal of good in…

how is this different/better for corporations than for politicians? Also how do corporations, that focus their efforts on using the cheapest possible production methods regardless of effects on the environments or peoples' health, paying their workers the absolute minimum for them to continue living, and paying their shareholders the absolute maximum amount 'enrich others' by accident? Not that I am defending corrupt…

Corporations in a free market offer products and services. Politicians coercion.

They do not improve your life objetively, usually they do not pay for the price of them when there is a mistake but get benefits from trafficking favors.

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

#312
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being a politician should be a curse that the dedicated bear for the good of humanity, not cushy job and badge of pride Nobody I know would run for state office. They pay poorly. You have to work in the state capitol, which in most state's is awful. You lose your privacy. And for what, a marginal legislative role? The historic benefit was pride. But with nihilism in vogue and trust in government low, that reward is…

I don't know you but I'd say no one you know is a committed public steward. However plenty of those exist outside of your bubble.

> no one you know is a committed public steward

I have friends who ran for and won local and federal offices. I specifically called out state because it min-maxes the power-honor trade-off.

That said, I’ll stand by my broader point. Normalised derision has made public service more taxing than it ever was. This is true globally, and has been called out by high-profile resignations in e.g. New Zealand and Scotland.

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just use 'person' rather than 'man'?

Man is not being used in a gendered manner.

Eh. You can _say_ that, but it's clearly no coincidence that the word for 'male' and for 'person' were the same for a long time. 'Person' seems like the obviously neutral choice to make, hence my question: why not just use 'person'?

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

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they going to stop me from installing software? Even if they force "app stores" into compliance, I've lived in a world without them. I can always git clone from-ipfs, make, make install. Or you know, install some Flatpack from some secret repo or matrix group. Or find/distribute some software using BitTorrent over TOR. Do Encryption tools/apps now have the same status as botnet control software packages: Only…

That works for your average HN user, who knows what all those words mean. For someone else it means you either live with what the government lets you have, or you pay the cost of learning all those things. People will end up accepting a lower level of privacy.

But real criminals won't. And I'll be put into a group with them as far as law enforcement is concerned.

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

#315
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have thought for some years now that any country wanting to implement some kind of restrictions or surveillance should start with politicians and authorities first. With some select authorities being exempt from this due to national security. For example, if a country wants to implement the installation of state-owned anti-harassment "spyware" on their citizens phones, then this would first apply to politicians and…

> With some select authorities being exempt from this due to national security. I fear your carveout would quickly become an "Inner Party" situation, with those with real power declaring themselves exempt due to "national security" reasons. Imagine then that anyone in any position of authority but not real power would be subject to the surveillance as an "Outer Party" member. I get that the intent is to show the peop…

You understand that there is already an inner party, not in a conspiracy sense, but in a privacy sense. Yo have to actually argue why partial transparency is way worse than full obscurity.

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

#316
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have thought for some years now that any country wanting to implement some kind of restrictions or surveillance should start with politicians and authorities first. With some select authorities being exempt from this due to national security. For example, if a country wants to implement the installation of state-owned anti-harassment "spyware" on their citizens phones, then this would first apply to politicians and…

> With some select authorities being exempt from this due to national security. I fear your carveout would quickly become an "Inner Party" situation, with those with real power declaring themselves exempt due to "national security" reasons. Imagine then that anyone in any position of authority but not real power would be subject to the surveillance as an "Outer Party" member. I get that the intent is to show the peop…

That’s exactly the kind of fallacy these politicians would use to argue against this kind of thing ;)

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

#317

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 have thought for some years now that any country wanting to implement some kind of restrictions or surveillance should start with politicians and authorities first. With some select authorities being exempt from this due to national security. For example, if a country wants to implement the installation of state-owned anti-harassment "spyware" on their citizens phones, then this would first apply to politicians and…

If thought of something similar but comprehensive and far reaching, as follows:

Any law voted yes by a politician would have:

A 6mo cool off period, and in that interim periodthe following would apply: the law in question would be Tripled (3x) and both ways (I.e. retroactive and future) to the elected officials, his immediate parents, sons, and siblings, as soon as the law is passed.

So if they pass a tax increase, the entire tax applies immediately to their family before it applies to the public.

Same would be surveillance. Same for healthcare changes. OR draft etc. They would eat their kill.

Its about time no?

Any regulatory body unelected chief + deputy should be subject to the same rules with a tidy bonus: agency rules would also impact the portfolio (materiality can be set at say FV in excess of 300% poverty line), or business relationships past + present for the "czars" and family members.

So If you want to run FDIC and want to make rules for banks, thats swell, but those rules will apply to bank X where your brother works, AND to bank Y where you were CEO. The new rule would apply to those banks first, the changes would be tripled, AND that would be applied retroactively.

Have fun with that revolving door!

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

if the EU is anti democratic, then there's no democracy on this planet. Show me another place where 27 countries live peacefully together and jointly govern an entire sub continent, by collaborating together and discussing publicly about their political proposals. Of course it has its problems, of course it takes a lot of effort to bring 27 countries together on a subject, of course there will be controversial opinio…

The price of democracy in a region or organization is the minority of votes not getting the result they want and only that. Nothing to do with privacy. Not having privacy is a consequence of authoritarianism, be it for a greater good (to find child abusers) or not (to find dissidents).

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

#319
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore remains an authoritarian state, not a democracy. It allowed for massive progress in a difficult political climate but it does so at the cost of a good amount of political freedoms. That might be fine, but not in all cultures. I also challenge the notion that higher pay leads to less corruption. If so, then why are Denmark, Finland, New Zealand and Norway ranked higher in the corruption perception index[1],…

But that is a perceptions index. People are going to answer based on what they heard about the previous year's index. Of course it's hard to find the "actual corruption" figures, but that doesn't mean the perceptions index is of any value.

This is the best authoritative source that I could find. The few assertions I've seen that Singapore is less corrupt than most european and north american countries quote Transparency International as a source, so I assume it might be an acceptable one. They also supplement their findings with a "GCB" survey[1] (which is less recent), and given enough time I guess there are other sources one could find.

These are surveys, so there's a limit to how reliable their results can be. However, I find surveys are a pretty good start when you need to get a general idea on how something does and you can't just measure it. How you value that is up to you, that's why I quote it in my comment.

[1] https://www.transparency.org/en/gcb

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

#320

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…

You say this in jest, but it's a good idea. The more power you have, the less privacy you should have. This would be an appealing catch-up mechanic in society. I would vote yes.

If reality TV and US politics are any indication, then today it's the reverse: the less privacy you have, the more power you have.

Beware the peculiar human creature who craves attention from strangers.

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