Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

Issue though is that France seems to be taking a similarly dystopian route in terms of privacy and surveillance.

And it’s not just the thought that a rogue government or police employee can access anyone’s device, nor that criminals can use the same holes to steal data, it’s the idea that we are laying out all the infrastructure needed for an authoritarian regime to control the population. Don't get me wrong, the former two are extremely worrying but the latter is beyond extreme.

It’s as if we are collectively building turn key infrastructure for an authoritarian regime.

Essentially, once the infrastructure is in place, all you need is the right political climate and the wrong person in the right place.

They wouldn't need to spend decades building a future stasi or gestapo. All they need is to adjust parameters and fine tune laws. And with europe being the powder keg it is that scenario is not as far fetched as one might think.

> I'm waiting to see how this whole thing plays out, but I'm not bullish on the UK.

On this front, the way i see it, the uk might eventually split, with England becoming a bit like the Netherlands, or perhaps Austria. A bitter former colonial power, developed, but irrelevant on the global scene. Bullying a developing country here and there, trying to maintain the image, but eventually overtaken.

An alternative is to try and force a conflict where the uk somehow ends on top - particularly since europe needs a viable alternative to germany. But hard to pull through by a country where eggs are still rationed.

Ultimately, results matter. My country started semi feudal and it was under socialism that it industrialised, electrified, developed universal health care, built homes for every working family, etc. Sadly the coup in 89 ended that, but it doesn’t have to have been perfect to have been good.

- Genocide against the people who lived in America

- Bring India to its knees, from one of the richest to one of the most impoverished nations in the world

- Addict China to opium

- Irish potato famine

I'd talk about Africa, but that's a lot more diverse. A lot of England's current wealth came by theft, rape, and murder. If you're living in London, both your social infrastructure and your housing prices are powered by blood money from the British Empire. If you moved to London from Algeria (and I intentionally picked a non-British colony), your children are benefiting from schools funded by interest on investments from blood.

From a policy perspective, things get very nuanced. I'd like to right historical wrongs, but I don't feel good about guilt-by-descent. If your grandparents did something bad, that shouldn't count against you. If you have stolen money and goods, they should be returned. On the other hand, simply living in London shouldn't lead to any policy consequences (and things get especially complex with e.g. Indian or African immigrants, escaping parts of the world devastated by the British).

But I wasn't talking about policy, but whom I'd feel bad for. From an emotional perspective, things are simpler:

- English museums have relics plundered from India, Nigeria, etc.

- They believe they have a moral right to other culture's most prized relics, and won't return them.

Scotland was never imperial, and has had a mixed history with England.

And building even more on the emotional component, I haven't been there a lot, but the way I was treated in Scotland was very different from how I was treated in England. I have wonderful memories from one of those visits, and bad memories from the other. As much as I've only been there briefly, I just really /like/ Scotland.

What is UK trying to achieve? To maintain, as much as possible, a pretty controlling state in power. It is a country with no free speech, no significant human rights of any sort, population is at the mercy of the govern and they want to keep it that way. Apps like Signal give people some free speech - you cannot publicly say what you want to say, but at least you can say it to others without being cancelled or arrested for opinions that are not liked by the govern.