Lobbyists running the show. It's kind of a copy/paste of the US system.
Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
121–130 of 282 posts
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
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You have apparently no idea what an actual dictatorship is
No, I think the term applies very well. That there are worse dictatorships does not really nullify the statement.
Even "democracies" have death penalties and commit to genocide. See the USA as an example here. One can always reason that there are worse countries in this regard - nobody rejects that either.
We need to have a much more nuanced view on democracy. The EU presently is not one.
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose you know? Now go enlighten us on how the EU is super democratic and way better than the worst dictatorship that ever existed, so we may be happy we are not the worst.
> Now go enlighten us on how the EU is super democratic and way better than the worst dictatorship that ever existed, so we may be happy we are not the worst. Well they're not rounding people because of their religion or sexuality and putting them in "retraining" camps yet. Or using "criminals" as enforced organ donors. I suppose there's that. The EU is being a bit short-sighted and shit with regard to Chat Control b…
And you don't see the problem with allowing processes like this just before the extreme right might gain control of the French presidency AND gets a shot at the German chancillary (even if, yes, it's likely to fail)? The ability to make laws for the entire EU, overriding popular opinion ...
You really have trouble imagining what this could lead to?
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c70yk5xjyl1t
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/germany/ (the biggest party gets first shot at providing the chancellor and government)
And while Hungary's Magyar is a huge improvement over Orban, let's be honest here, he's extreme right too.
Anti-immigration rightist parties are the norm across Europe nowadays. The center is shifting right in a big way, and the current "sanity" coalitions are forced to make deeper and deeper cuts in government services. They will keep losing popularity for another decade or so.
The extreme right's message of "let's kick immigrants out so we can instead spend on normal, good people" is total bullshit of course, it doesn't work like that. But voters are going to be more and more desperate for anything that stops the government service cuts, for a very long time yet.
And the problem is that the base part of the argument is true. Immigration was supposed to save Europe's collective economic ass and has utterly, completely and totally failed to do that.
And, of course, like the UK has demonstrated, the sad truth is EU governments are going to cause a lot of social problems through ECB-enforced spending cuts. They'll be looking for someone to blame and ... well we all know where that leads.
We could easily see a repeat of Trumps wrecking ball, enforced by the EU, in Europe.
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So, if I'm reading this correctly, Chat Control [2.0, implied] is bound to become law? Nope. This is bad, but not THAT bad. This is an extension of the existing Chat Control 1.0, which was set to expire (or maybe already has, I didn't keep track). AIUI it gives chat companies permission to scan user chats for illicit content, but does not mandate it. This is bad, but it's not the much worse still Chat Control 2.0 t…
Thanks for the correction! I guess I can live with that.
yes. Frog will be boiled tomorrow, no need to panic today.
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have apparently no idea what an actual dictatorship is
No, I think the term applies very well. That there are worse dictatorships does not really nullify the statement. Even "democracies" have death penalties and commit to genocide. See the USA as an example here. One can always reason that there are worse countries in this regard - nobody rejects that either. We need to have a much more nuanced view on democracy. The EU presently is not one.
What relationship does the death penalty and genocide have to democracy (or lack thereof)? That seems orthogonal to the definition.
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
So basically the people we elected will vote yes. How's that undemocratic? Because the majority doesn't vote the way I like it? I'm not even ironic, I truly don't understand those comments. You get what you voted for, garbage in garbage out.
The vast majority (72%) of European citizens are opposed to Chat control. Regardless, the proposal has been brought up and rejected relentlessly, mostly by action of politicians (commissioners) who are not directly elected to begin with. We have more than enough reasons to be furious. https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/poll-72-of-citizens-oppose-...
What you have to understand about issue polling is that it's very easy to get whatever results you want if you simply instruct the pollster to ask in absurd ways. This was the question posed to respondents:
> EUR02a. Some politicians are calling for the automatic searching of all personal electronic mail and messages of each citizen for presumed suspect content in the search for child pornography. Suspected cases will be notified to the police. An advantage of this could be that more offenders are caught. However, according to police reports, in the vast majority of cases innocent citizens come under suspicion of having committed an offence due to unreliable processes. Please place yourself in the position that your personal electronic mail and messages are searched for suspect content. What is your opinion?
Obviously this is not a good faith attempt to understand if people support message scanning.
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have apparently no idea what an actual dictatorship is
No, I think the term applies very well. That there are worse dictatorships does not really nullify the statement. Even "democracies" have death penalties and commit to genocide. See the USA as an example here. One can always reason that there are worse countries in this regard - nobody rejects that either. We need to have a much more nuanced view on democracy. The EU presently is not one.
If the decision-makers are elected by the people, it's not a dictatorship, no matter how many atrocities the nation commits.
You can have some gray area I guess, with unfair elections or whatever, but when the bad decisions are made by leaders who keep on getting re-elected in reasonably fair elections, we do not have a dictatorship.
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#128Is anyone working on a "No chat control at all, ever law"? If these can be defeated, presumably one of those could become law.
This happened in Switzerland with cash.
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have apparently no idea what an actual dictatorship is
It's mostly a lack of properly descriptive words in the language. I think "totalitarian liberalism" or the "managerial state" is probably closer to what we're talking about here. Power is not concentrated in one individual; responsibility and accountability are diffused so far that it is impossible to find someone who actually can do or change anything. "Rational systems" of business process and rigour serve to remov…
> In some ways, the concentration of power in a dictatorship might be better, if the dictator was well morally aligned with the people.
This is pretty much the exact argument that Hayek makes - socialism leads to fascism through political gridlock.
Re: Chat Control passed first round in EU Parliament
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
The European Comission is the top decision maker of the EU. The European citizen has zero (0) influence on the members or actions of the EC. No different than the politburo in China.
> The European citizen has zero (0) influence on the members or actions of the EC Whenever one reads EC you need to read: "All of the heads of state in a trenchcoat". Macron, Merz, etc And yet this is an EP maneuver And let's not forget on the American lobbyists pushing for it (Including Big Tech)
It’s a maneuver between the council and EPP