Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

I feel like it might be impossible. The people agree with the tar pit makers.

Pass a mass surveillance law, 10% will be outraged, 80% will say "Well I don't have anything to hide. Oh well."

Pass a censorship law targeting legal but unpopular/controversial material. 10% outraged, 80% say "Good, I never liked it anyway."

Pass a preemptive policing law, 10% outraged, 80% claim "If it makes me safer, I like it. I'm not a criminal after all, I don't have anything to fear."

Pass a law that codifies your nation's most popular religion as something to be promoted and enforced. 10% outraged, 80% cheer it on, because it agrees with their views.

The 80% is illustrative here, but it seems like the people who agree with the above statements are a very solid and overwhelming majority. So why it did take us so much time to creep up to deliberate censorship and surveillance? As someone who was born in the 21st century, the freedom to access and do things on the internet had only ever been on the downhill, any small wins are overwritten by inevitable losses that make things more controlled, more 'safe'.

Anyway, I'm all for putting the sons of politicians on the front line, but don't think that will stop wars. The British Empire was infamous for putting nobleborn men directly in harms way, they would proudly stand up right in the thick of combat making themselves tempting targets and were routinely cut down. In a society with a strong martial tradition this doesn't turn people into peaceniks, if anything it gets people even more excited for wars.

As a ChemEng, I can't help but compare the current coordinated attack on the democratic rule of governments worldwide to having multiple batches of emulsions undergoing phase-inversion [0]: only so much fascism can be added before things collapse into a greasy turd.

That democracy is not robust does not mean it is not good nor something worth aspiring to. I would argue that the root cause of the sad state of democracies is the fact that we were coaxed into a snafu by virtue of accepting the false equivalence of capitalism and democracy: the first does not warrant the other; in fact they are most times at odds.

I am also reminded of the Behind the Bastards podcast and their episodes on Adolf Eichmann's careerist pursuit enabling the Holocaust... leading me to wonder how many people are burning the world down as part of a KPI... Or, in other words, are our economic systems and forms of government vulnerable to the paperclip problem?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_inversion_(chemistry)#In...

There are huge bodies of research out there on voting behaviour. If you look at it, it's a lot less surprising.

The means by which we're supposed to hold the elected officials accountable for not representing our best interests is voting. It doesn't work.

Most people don't, as individuals, hold any sort of stable policy positions to begin with. People have a poor understanding of the candidates' position on various topics (strongly correlated with not having a stable policy position themselves). Candidates themselves have influence on people's view of subjects. People tend to take some of their views from the candidate they've decided to support, and project their own views onto the candidate in other cases making them seem more aligned/preferable.

The entire model is basically set up assuming that:

1. People have a view on policy which they decided on.

2. People will understand the candidates' positions and vote for the ones most closely aligned with them.

3. If an elected representative does not follow through on their positions and views, the people will hold them accountable by voting them out of office.

4. Therefore, in aggregate and over the long term, the elected representatives represent and enact the will of the people.

For the vast majority of issues in the vast majority of cases... one and two do not hold true to a level that's meaningful or significant.

That means the third step falls apart. In practice, there's little accountability to the electorate for the elected representatives.

Which means the fourth falls apart.

Given the elected officials aren't really beholden to the electorate, what else would guide their position? On an individual basis, there are a lot of opportunities for wealth and power. Unless it's anything particularly egregious, the only real impediment to them taking advantage is their own personal ethics and morals. The kinds of people that want to put their life on hold to run a campaign so they can maybe take a shit job with mediocre pay where a bunch of people will be pissed at them no matter what they do... are unfortunately often not in for the mediocre pay and anger.

And here we are. It's not whether there are enough people that support being continually monitored, it's about whether there's enough people and enough money _against_ it to stir up enough people to care to stop them. There's almost definitely not.

And just to make it entirely hopeless--even if you are a well-informed voter with considered and consistent views on policy... Many countries have very little in the way of options for who else to vote for. Is this important enough to enough people to make them a single issue voter? Would they vote for the hypothetical "We Support Murdering Kittens" party if they were against the spying? Probably not--they'll probably hold their nose and vote for the "We Love Kittens" party as the lesser evil.