Four fears for authoritarians • Hacker News Board

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#31

Post by snitko » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:04 AM UTC

andreasklinger wrote: post #15

scrrr wrote: post #7

Yep, see what happened in the Arabic countries (and some other countries outside of the Islam-sphere). People organised to protest using the Internet. People get educated using the Internet. In Cuba they exchange information using thumb drives. And every bullshitter (= our governments) should be afraid of it. They are, of course. And surveillance is their reaction. What will help is if everyone finally realises that…

What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow.

Kinda simple. We finance this bullshit by paying taxes. Why do we pay them? Because they force us to and convince us it's a good idea. What do we do about it? Use any form of money that is problematic to track and tax: cash, gold, Bitcoin. Pretty sure it's possible to live just on that - would be a little uncomfortable, but certainly less so than some violent action. And it would be a major blow to the government if the majority of people started doing it.

Also, if you're serious about doing something - don't just throw the usual "but who's gonna build the roads and help the poor". Think and find solutions that don't involve government. Don't just say it's impossible. Nothing is impossible and certainly not this.

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#32

Post by Cakez0r » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:07 AM UTC

snitko wrote: post #31

andreasklinger wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow.

Kinda simple. We finance this bullshit by paying taxes. Why do we pay them? Because they force us to and convince us it's a good idea. What do we do about it? Use any form of money that is problematic to track and tax: cash, gold, Bitcoin. Pretty sure it's possible to live just on that - would be a little uncomfortable, but certainly less so than some violent action. And it would be a major blow to the government if…

That would be impossible in the UK. Salary is paid directly into one's bank account and tax is deducted before it even gets there.

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#33

Post by Cakez0r » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:11 AM UTC

andreasklinger wrote: post #15

scrrr wrote: post #7

Yep, see what happened in the Arabic countries (and some other countries outside of the Islam-sphere). People organised to protest using the Internet. People get educated using the Internet. In Cuba they exchange information using thumb drives. And every bullshitter (= our governments) should be afraid of it. They are, of course. And surveillance is their reaction. What will help is if everyone finally realises that…

What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow.

I posed this same question and the best answer (for a UK citizen) was to write to my MP. I did that and got a canned response back that addressed none of my points. I agree that it seems futile. I'm vehemently opposed to censorship but am powerless to stop it as an individual. It seems like it's already a done deal. We're not just talking about stopping something in its tracks, but rolling it back in the other direction. The amount of inertia required to do that is completely overwhelming.

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#34

Post by c2prods » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:13 AM UTC

Very good article, I think it got everything right. It's a well-known fact that fear always leads to dark outcomes for democracy (it's been very well covered through many films and books, from Yoda to Orwell :p). Yet, for the first time, local governments try to shut down a global network. This paradox might be what saves us. At any rate, the least we can do is to raise awareness about this topic.

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#35

Post by snitko » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:15 AM UTC

Cakez0r wrote: post #32

snitko wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda simple. We finance this bullshit by paying taxes. Why do we pay them? Because they force us to and convince us it's a good idea. What do we do about it? Use any form of money that is problematic to track and tax: cash, gold, Bitcoin. Pretty sure it's possible to live just on that - would be a little uncomfortable, but certainly less so than some violent action. And it would be a major blow to the government if…

That would be impossible in the UK. Salary is paid directly into one's bank account and tax is deducted before it even gets there.

Ask your employer if he can pay you in cash or Bitcoin off the record. If you're a business, sell for bitcoins and give discounts, certainly pay employees in Bitcoin if they ask you to. As far as I know, there's currently no law that requires you to pay taxes on bitcoins earned. Even if there was, it'd be prohibitively expensive for government to track everyone's Bitcoin addresses (data mining on the blockchain is certainly possible, but a great deal more difficult than reading your emails, I suppose).

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#36

Post by talktime » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:16 AM UTC

Expat Brit here. Quite frankly I'm frightened to pass through UK ports now to visit family after reading about Schedule 7 powers.

My reading of it is that passing through a UK port means I enter a legal limbo. If stopped by an inquisitor, I'm likely to assert my right to silence. This may mean I'm detained and intimidated for 9 hours. At the end of this I can be arrested and charged with 'non-cooperation', this may involve further detention and/or fines all for simply remaining silent.

Leaving the UK is worse, as I'll likely miss my flight, and have the expense of re-booking.

This is just if the border agents are acting within 'the law'.

Virtually every UK citizen passes through a port at sometime during the year - the inquistors can simply wait there for anyone they are interested in. It effectively means the right to silence is dead.

Foreign visitors should be aware they can be legally forced to give up their Gmail/Facebook passwords. Hope Big Ben is worth it.

I wonder what the plans are for Julian Assange when he eventually leaves the UK - almost certain to be detained under Schedule 7.

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#37

Post by Cakez0r » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:19 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #20

tlarkworthy wrote: post #6

If anyone knew the most effective way for us UK citizens to stop our government from making irreversible constitutional mistakes I would be highly grateful for the information.

Rewatch "V for Vendetta" and apply.

Whenever I've asked this same question, there are always a few who say "stop being complacent, get out and become an anarchist" but that is completely unfeasible for most individuals. Becoming a radical requires a complete and fundamental lifestyle change. That's not something that the general population can get on board with.

I'm yet to find a good way to incite change without having to dedicate your life to a cause. Like the OP, I'm open to suggestions.

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#38

Post by mseebach » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:21 AM UTC

asgard1024 wrote: post #22

I have come to conclusion that more radical thinking is needed. American constitution (or other derived documents, such as EU Charter on Human Rights, I am EU citizen), as it stands, is not going to cut it. The thing is, the extremes of keeping things hidden we see in the government are just a tip of a long tail of many, many people trying to keep things hidden in other, more mundane, institutions. For existential fe…

> Can democratic state do without any secret service at all? I don't mean not to have "operational" security.

The secrecy there is in place today is all "operational", there are no other kinds. The problem is defining what constitutes as being within the scope of a legitimate operation, and especially the asymmetrical nature of defining it (only the people know a secret can reason about it, and they are rarely the best people to make the decision).

> There should be no blank exceptions to free speech

You're confusing "free speech" in the constitutional sense with something else, which seems to amount to outlawing private agreements to not divulge certain information. Your definition of free speech would cover my right to post the root password to my employers servers on 4chan and my employer having no recurse against me.

Constitutional free speech exclusively concerns the governments right to decide what you can say. A newspaper or website deciding you can't "speak" on their property is not a free speech issue in the constitutional sense.

> I envision a platform

Your envisioned platform is essentially wikipedia. You have a somewhat naive notion of "truth" - the truth in any half-way juicy issue have a very high number of facets and nuances that frequently allows honest and well meaning people to disagree on fundamental issues, which means compromises will have to be struck where those disagreements can't reasonably co-exist. This is a feature, not a bug, in a pluralistic society.

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#39

Post by snitko » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:22 AM UTC

Cakez0r wrote: post #33

andreasklinger wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if everyone already realised that it's not about terrorism but doesn't know how to act and therefore falls into cynicism? If anyone knows what to do please step up and lead I am happy to follow.

I posed this same question and the best answer (for a UK citizen) was to write to my MP. I did that and got a canned response back that addressed none of my points. I agree that it seems futile. I'm vehemently opposed to censorship but am powerless to stop it as an individual. It seems like it's already a done deal. We're not just talking about stopping something in its tracks, but rolling it back in the other direct…

Writing to your MP (or governor, or senator) is akin to a slave begging his master. I don't mean to say you're a slave, but generations later, people may see this arrangement we have with our governments in this very way. It doesn't matter that we were told to believe our governments work for us. It doesn't take long to realize that we were told this precisely because it's not so. The power they have is so much greater that it'd be completely unnatural if they ever listened to what the people were asking them to do. They don't care. They only care that you think things are getting better or at least not getting worse. They don't care about what things really are. So I suggest people stop fooling themselves about civilized societies and democracies. There are none.

Re: Four fears for authoritarians

#40

Post by Cakez0r » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 10:26 AM UTC

snitko wrote: post #35

Cakez0r wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be impossible in the UK. Salary is paid directly into one's bank account and tax is deducted before it even gets there.

Ask your employer if he can pay you in cash or Bitcoin off the record. If you're a business, sell for bitcoins and give discounts, certainly pay employees in Bitcoin if they ask you to. As far as I know, there's currently no law that requires you to pay taxes on bitcoins earned. Even if there was, it'd be prohibitively expensive for government to track everyone's Bitcoin addresses (data mining on the blockchain is ce…

That could work if you were a freelancer (although it would make life significantly more complicated). However, no established employer would agree to pay cash or bitcoin. It'd be highly illegal and no business would want to take that risk.

Aside from that, you'd still need a way to convert bitcoins to cash, which involves the money running through a bank account. It would turn in to an elaborate fraud operation.