Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

In a great deal of area, no one bothers to get a license plate. You can just build a house, no government asshole to block you, and if they do they are only looking for a small bribe. There is no CPS for the next Karen to call to come harass your kids for them playing independently. Very little intervention in family disputes nor practical ability to extract alimony because your wife decided she was "bored." The cash economy thrives. The ability of the government to tax is weak. There is not the money nor personnel available to do Orwellian surveillance and the state has to very strategically pick how to spend its few resources oppressing the populace.

Canada and USA have more freedom on paper. If you don't count the fact you're spending 1/4 or 1/3 of the year slaving to pay taxes, burning another 1/3 of the year to make rent because it's illegal to just erect a shack on a postage stamp and live in it for next to nothing, and that the precious 'rule of law' means instead of the policeman asking for a bribe they'll just arrest you on one of the gazillion laws (ignorance of the law is no excuse!) on the books to get their money instead.

This isn't to say it's better. But a great deal of my family that could immigrate from the third world... have not.... or they use North America as a cash vacuum while they invest in their 3rd world hometown where they can actually get shit done without a gigantic pile of paperwork and environmental reviews with a gazillion rules attached to start and run a business.

To me, I don't believe you can have one without the other, in particular since so much of this power grab requires the instruments of corporations in order to accomplish. If _either one_ of Google or Apple said "we're not implementing these draconian controls, sue us" it would be over. It is interesting they're willing to use this tactic when it comes to protecting their app stores or in-game purchase streams but not when it comes to clear undemocratic overreach.

To be clear I'm not suggesting this is a natural outcome of capitalism in general, just that, in the wake of extreme monopolization, the current crop of mega corporations have become insulated from competitive reality, and are therefore hopelessly corrupt. They're willingly allowing their technology stacks to be used by the government in this way in exchange for the opportunities it affords them and the lack of enforcement it creates.