Live data from Hacker News

The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

mullvad.net

261–270 of 425 posts

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#261
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already had some experiments about "what if we select politicians based on their love for being on TV and their lack of concern about concealing their corruption" and the results aren't good...

Public figures kinda need to be narcissistic just to be able to face seeing themselves so much each day. And that includes the good ones. I'm more worried about the fact that humans are, collectively at least, so hypocritical. For the following examples, bare in mind that neither I nor the general public understand the actual laws, so any nits you pick need to be the kind that even a non-lawyer will accept: I'm old e…

>I'm more worried about the fact that humans are, collectively at least, so hypocritical.

Humans are violent too. If we tried as hard to train it out of people we'd make good progress.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#262
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The richer would be the ones that do things on their livefeed that attract people. Do you want politicians orgies? Because that's how you get politicians orgies. The poorer politicians would be the perfectly honest and completely boring ones, not a great way to encourage honesty.

Do you want politicians orgies? Now wait, let not be too hasty here. We should whiteboard this out. There are a lot of moving parts, and shutting down an idea too soon, would be wrong. So to start, uh, just wondering, which politicians? Also, what would they be wearing? Again, only asking for an accurate framing here.

Lauren Boebert is secretly a total hottie. But I really wanna see Mitch McConnell shake what he got.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#263
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Singapore System - their ministers are the highest paid in the world and it (apparently) makes a difference.

Singapore remains an authoritarian state, not a democracy. It allowed for massive progress in a difficult political climate but it does so at the cost of a good amount of political freedoms. That might be fine, but not in all cultures. I also challenge the notion that higher pay leads to less corruption. If so, then why are Denmark, Finland, New Zealand and Norway ranked higher in the corruption perception index[1],…

But that is a perceptions index. People are going to answer based on what they heard about the previous year's index.

Of course it's hard to find the "actual corruption" figures, but that doesn't mean the perceptions index is of any value.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#264
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect initially only those who are unpopular and unlikely to be defended by the public will be prosecuted. Then over time more political enemies (probably starting with "trans women aren't women" activists) will be prosecuted and the slow slide begins...

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#265
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suggested alternative: The "End Political Corruption Proposal" I'm probably in the minority on HN, but I think this is a good thing. It should be a matter of course, in a democratic society. Free speech doesn't live solely in digital communication (universally owned by some company) any more than it does in the classified ads in a newspaper.

It would be world changing, the complete abolition of all privacy. Little drones that followed everybody around, everywhere, broadcasting and storing every thing everybody does, or says, everywhere they go, and what they do. No. I do not recommend it. But the thought experiment is interesting.

I'm not sure privacy as a concept should be off limits. It wasn't always a thing, in fact it's fairly recent. However there's a fairly big leap from "you can't always expect privacy" to "drones recording your whole life".

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#266
The actual proposal, first paragraph:

> The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and Article 24(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’) 1 enshrine as rights the protection and care of children’s best interests and well-being. In 2021, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child underlined that these rights must be equally protected in the digital environment 2 . The protection of children, both offline and online, is a Union priority.

Literally, "it's for the children". I don't need to read any more. Get fucked, big brother.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#267

This is so awful that it strikes me as likely being a door-in-the-face[1] proposal designed to make a more 'reasonable' proposal that is still vile on its own merits seem palatable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique

See also: Overton Window and Anchoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias) ...but yes, this is why in the US republicans are constantly floating all sorts of batshit regressive policies on social welfare programs, LGBTQ people, voting rights, immigration - it shifts the ultimate compromise closer to their desired outcome, and even if it doesn't, it sti…

Dems too. They're both as nutty as each other. You hear that? Someone in the distance is shouting "I just want public healthcare". Russia is about to find out why USA doesnt have public healthcare.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#268

Suggested alternative: The "End Political Corruption Proposal" "Given that political corruption is rife in European countries, with great detriments to the healthy function of government, all politicians in positions where they may be engaging in corrupt behavior must submit to 24-7 audio and video surveillance, which will be piped over public platforms for crowdsourcing of corruption detection. All personal communic…

Saying that if we start scanning all chats for illegal activity then we should also require all communications of politicians to be part of public record is not exactly the strongest argument.

I mean those systems are already in place, at a minimum you'd have to argue they're ineffective or not as intrusive. And your hyperbole is not doing you any favours on that front.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics already suffers heavily from not getting the best-of-the-best. Making it even less attractive to become a politician is unlikely to improve upon that. In the totality of all politicians out there that you have an opinion about, which fraction of them do you like, in terms of thinking they are the right person for the job? Do you think this fraction would improve with that opt-in scenario implemented?

we are FAR AWAY from that being a problem. An average Joe that isn't corrupted by money/lobbyists/... will make dramatically better decisions than any smartass that also tries to hide the corruption under the rug of meritocracy ("you don't understand, I am the expert!!11"). Decisions that are made in good faith from average people would be so much better than anything we experience today, its almost comically absurd.…

> we are FAR AWAY from that being a problem. An average Joe that isn't corrupted by money/lobbyists/... will make dramatically better decisions than any smartass that also tries to hide the corruption under the rug of meritocracy

Citation needed. Actually, a lot of citations needed.

When's the last time you spoke to an "average Joe" ? The average joe can't even make the right decisions regarding their own life and health, and is probably struggling to keep their family together and make ends meet.

What in the world makes you think they are qualified to make decisions on behalf of millions of constituents? I would drop dead before I let someone like that be my voice in politics.

> Decisions that are made in good faith from average people would be so much better than anything we experience today, its almost comically absurd.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far, none is provided.

Re: The chat control proposal does not belong in democratic societies

#270
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how: by stopping you from installing the software needed, which is the part that worries me.

How are they going to stop me from installing software? Even if they force "app stores" into compliance, I've lived in a world without them. I can always git clone from-ipfs, make, make install. Or you know, install some Flatpack from some secret repo or matrix group. Or find/distribute some software using BitTorrent over TOR. Do Encryption tools/apps now have the same status as botnet control software packages: Only…

That works for your average HN user, who knows what all those words mean. For someone else it means you either live with what the government lets you have, or you pay the cost of learning all those things. People will end up accepting a lower level of privacy.
Post reply on HN