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

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

#231

Post by the-smug-one »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #227
datameta wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The omission was likely in that the failure is in trying to make filing taxes simple.

It’s pretty dang simple today. If you’re a usual W-2 employee, anyone who can read and follow simple instructions can file without paying any preparer a dime. For those of us trying to collect all the weird tax situations: https://freetaxusa.com .

In Sweden and Denmark the tax service prepares a tax statement for you. In Sweden, if everything looks OK, you press a button. In Denmark, if everything looks OK, you don't even have to press a button.

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

#232

Post by Macha »

idle_zealot wrote: post #215
ryandrake wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deck is stacked. They only have to win once, and it's law. You have to win over and over every time it's introduced.

Is this really true, though? Couldn't you pass a law specifically banning the thing you don't want to happen, so any future law that contradicts it needs a supermajority to pass or something?

Depends on the system, but usually no, a parliament cannot restrict future parliaments.

e.g. the law to make changing thing X require a supermajority could itself be repealed with a simple majority here, unless it was approved as an amendment to our constitution. Which _does_ happen more often than it does for the US here, but usually just for large nationally popular things.

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

#233

Post by klysm »

McDyver wrote: post #30

They make it really difficult to fight any of this. You have to, individually - find a representative, their contact info, state your case, hope it's the correct person, hope your mail doesn't go unnoticed, hope that it will be properly read, hope it changes their mind. This is "lobbying" by the people in a disorganised way, trying to fight organised lobbying. This is a barrier that puts lots of people off, even if t…

Why would the politician in question give a shit what you think? They get into office mostly by funding which comes from… guess who?

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

#234

Post by beefnugs »

Saline9515 wrote: post #178

Aside from the infamous privacy aspects, I'm wondering about the feasibility and the energy cost of running continously ML algos to scan content on a phone. Given that the private malware providers aren't accountable for it, I guess that it will noticeably degrade the average battery life for phones in the EU.

Dont worry about it, the house of cards will be propped up with those truck-trailer-nuke-reactors.

Only charging your phones if you have 3+ AI subscriptions and comply with all anti encryption laws of course

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

#235

Post by zarzavat »

prophesi wrote: post #130
kpcyrd wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actionable items are "write code" and "build systems". The cypherpunk scene is still alive and evolving, but it's fairly niche, and a tough environment for people driven by external validation while 'things are well'. But there are still people around making sure the necessary pieces are in place in case they become necessary.

The privacy-preserving systems have been built and are finally making it into the mainstream, only to be uprooted by politics. Not that we no longer need to build more of such systems, but the root of the issue lies elsewhere.

Yes but the mainstream systems are not decentralized enough. We need better systems.

We, the technological community, have failed the wider public by not creating decentralized alternatives that are as good as centralized ones.

Chat Control shouldn't even be an issue, we should just be able to laugh it away.

Is anyone concerned about Mastodon being banned? No right because it would be almost impossible to implement. Yet it is possible for WhatsApp/Telegram(yuck)/Signal. Even the tech darling Signal is centralized as fuck.

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

#236

Post by somenameforme »

Arainach wrote: post #149
Der_Einzige wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plato's "republic" (one of the worst books in human history) and every justification in that book and every book citing it is trotted out to argue for how bad direct democracy is. Now we act like it's not good because Athens got its shit pushed in by Sparta during the Peloponnesian war. Direct democracy is good. One person one vote, on all legislation, actually could work. We haven't even tried at scale in thousands…

It's impossible for people to know about every topic. That was true in Plato's day and is dramatically more true now. People defer to what someone on TV or Tiktok told them and have no time to look into facts or primary sources. Direct democracy would get you solutions that sound emotionally appealing but do not work. That or gridlock where you can't get 50% to agree on anything. If you ask people "do you want A, B,…

People don't bother looking into stuff because they know their opinion, and their vote, doesn't really matter. Treat people like children and they start acting like children.

For some contrast Switzerland has a sort of defacto direct democracy in that citizens that obtain a relatively small number of votes can bring any issue they desire up for vote. And they have indeed brought issues like Basic Income with the suggested proposal of every single Swiss adult getting around $1700/month. That's something that would likely destroy any country that passed it, but it would likely pass by an overwhelming margin in the current state of the United States. But in Switzerland where people actually do have real power, and responsibility, to determine the future of their country, it was rejected by 77%.

Instead, back in the states we can look forward to our true political power of getting to choose between Dumbo and Dingbat for our completely unrepresentative representatives.

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

#237

Post by sheiyei »

lupusreal wrote: post #165
sneak wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heinlein in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress proposed a bicameral legislature, where one half needs a 66% majority to pass a law. The other half’s only job is to repeal laws, which they can do with a 50% majority.

At the end of that book, the protagonist explains that all the high minded Luna libertarian values broke down and were more or less abandoned in the years following their revolution, and they returned to more normal political processes.

Classic "missed 100% of the point" literature phenomenon

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

#238

Post by aesh2Xa1 »

Arainach wrote: post #149
Der_Einzige wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plato's "republic" (one of the worst books in human history) and every justification in that book and every book citing it is trotted out to argue for how bad direct democracy is. Now we act like it's not good because Athens got its shit pushed in by Sparta during the Peloponnesian war. Direct democracy is good. One person one vote, on all legislation, actually could work. We haven't even tried at scale in thousands…

It's impossible for people to know about every topic. That was true in Plato's day and is dramatically more true now. People defer to what someone on TV or Tiktok told them and have no time to look into facts or primary sources. Direct democracy would get you solutions that sound emotionally appealing but do not work. That or gridlock where you can't get 50% to agree on anything. If you ask people "do you want A, B,…

Representative systems vest political power into concentrated points of influence. The reps are often as uninformed as the citizens. The US just had some infamous legislation pass that representatives didn't even read, and publicly stated so.

The system also makes reps uniquely vulnerable to targeted lobbying, corruption, regulatory capture, and threats. I find much to be faulty with opaque dealings with a few key individuals.

Direct democracy mitigates these issues. Influence must be exerted through broad, public persuasion. This forces special interests to operate in the open, creating a higher and more transparent barrier to subverting the public will.

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

#239

Post by continuational »

mrtksn wrote: post #114
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Danish and I fucking hate my government for this. Nationally, the minister of justice Peter Hummelgaard is also pushing for a law which gives the police intelligence agency (PET) the right to basically do mass surveillance of everyone without prior suspicion of any criminal activity. If passed, they will be allowed to build a database of everyone which correlates social media activity with health care data and a…

What is the motivation behind this? Do you have some issue that in Denmark its deemed solvable only through that? Can you provide some context maybe? Is it like cultural thing?

> Do you have some issue that in Denmark its deemed solvable only through that?

No. On the contrary, our crime rates are some of the lowest in the world.

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

#240

Post by somenameforme »

Ray20 wrote: post #211
Der_Einzige wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plato's "republic" (one of the worst books in human history) and every justification in that book and every book citing it is trotted out to argue for how bad direct democracy is. Now we act like it's not good because Athens got its shit pushed in by Sparta during the Peloponnesian war. Direct democracy is good. One person one vote, on all legislation, actually could work. We haven't even tried at scale in thousands…

>advocated for a military draft where the draft eligible are only drawn up from the list of folks who voted yes on the war. I really like this position from an ethical point of view. But in reality you will be conquered by a neighboring country with different principles in about 3 days.

Voting yes on a war implies you're the one invading.
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