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VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

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Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#691

Post by kristianc »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #27

Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically…

The bureaucratic and security infrastructure built to manage colonial subjects didn’t disappear, it just refocused inward. You see it in policing, immigration policy, and intelligence. The Home Office runs on a suspicion-first logic rooted in managing threats—real or imagined.

It's one of the reasons the UK has one of the highest concentrations of CCTV cameras in the world. Public tolerance for this took hold the IRA years and cemented post-9/11 and 7/7. The narrative of ever-present threat made "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" sound reasonable to a large portion of the population.

The press, especially the Mail, Sun, and Express, also thrives on outrage. They set the tone for national conversation, whipping up fear and anger that politicians then "respond" to with legislation. The broad assumption is that people can’t be trusted with unfiltered access to information or autonomy, especially online. You also saw it in lockdown, where Britain had to endure one the harshest COVID lockdowns among Western democracies.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#692

Post by graemep »

logicchains wrote: post #621
Arkhaine_kupo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They also strongly believe the hoi polloi have to be forced to do what is good for them - e.g. the sugar tax and other "nudge politics", or the currently Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is basically about imposing central policy on how children are brought up and educated. A non insulting way to view that is that central goverments understand incentives, and in the same way there are child incentives fo…

>with teh extreme being homeschooling failing every time its attempted. I don't know where this is coming from; statistically speaking, homeschooled children do better on pretty much every educational outcome. Because the absolute number one factor determining student outcomes is the ratio of students to teachers; the fewer students per teacher, the better.

> Because the absolute number one factor determining student outcomes is the ratio of students to teachers; the fewer students per teacher, the better.

Home educated kids often teach themselves so the student teacher ratio is infinity so terrible!

Both my kids taught themselves some subjects (had tutors for other, had me for some, so lots of one to one too). They did just as well in the subjects they taught themselves (8 and 9 in GCSE Latin, which as they did not have a tutor and I am terrible at languages is very much self taught).

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#693

Post by dgroshev »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #214
12ian34 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK needs immigrants to increase stagnating productivity. this has been the case for decades and it's why no government has done, or will do anything serious to curb it.

Only a small minority of immigrants to the UK come through the skilled visa pathway, even if the health & social care visa numbers were added. See figure 1.3a - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisor... Note that to the best of my knowledge, these numbers don't include the Afghan resettlement scheme which would further lower the proportion of employment driven visas.

That chart is almost useless because it doesn't break down by settlement/non-settlement visa types.

Study visas do not have a pathway to settlement. Students paying through the nose for the privilege of staying for a few years to study and then leaving (or getting work visas like everyone else) is hardly a bad thing.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#694

Post by ujkiolp »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #646
ujkiolp wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the empire was always propped by colonialization - there wasn’t much to go once the colonies were no longer a cash cow for the UK

This narrative is bullocks and I’m sick of hearing this framing. “The UK deserves it because colonialism”. Contrary to your statement, the UK is a center of education, innovation, and still a major player in finance. The current malaise infects the West and is much more than “brexit” or “colonial hangovers”.

the sun sets on the british empire. The queen is dead, long live the queen.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#696

Post by nwatson »

ben_w wrote: post #344
areoform wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes are rising (with tax take falling) > just mentioning increased immigration One of these seems like the solution to the other. > as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe.…

IMO, the wheels fell off decades before I was born. The peak of the empire was around WW1, where the victory was immediately followed by Irish home rule, and Churchill(!) putting the UK military into austerity to save money, which is how it came to be that evacuating from Dunkirk involved a lot of civilian ships, amongst other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule WW2 was a Pyrrhic victory. Not that Wes…

As for WW2, Roosevelt worked hard to make sure Britain couldn't reconstitute its empire, and to work toward global self-determination.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#697

Post by budududuroiu »

continuational wrote: post #478
budududuroiu wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a website that provides English articles to trending topics from Chinese social media. It’s kinda funny that topics discussed there are sometimes “too sensitive” for western LLMs who will straight up refuse to write about them. Take from that what you will re: China vs western censorship

Like what?

Domestic violence, crimes involving minors, without explicit mention of the crime

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#698

Post by Dylan16807 »

jahewson wrote: post #634
makingstuffs wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word, division. The UK is so divided that people are too busy pointing the finger at each other to realise the root cause of the deterioration of our quality of life is entirely generations of mismanagement of the public purse. Instead of questioning how MPs are entitled to a pay rise while your average person gets made redundant, people are questioning why people fleeing persecution should ‘be paid for with my…

^^^ This is such a great example of the deranged elitist groupthink that dominates the UK’s national discourse. Holding the door open for fake asylum seekers costing billions while his fellow countrymen are laid off, and pointing the finger at MPs taking a few million between them.

What the hell is your definition of "elitist"?

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#699

Post by Dylan16807 »

rubyAce wrote: post #132
makingstuffs wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word, division. The UK is so divided that people are too busy pointing the finger at each other to realise the root cause of the deterioration of our quality of life is entirely generations of mismanagement of the public purse. Instead of questioning how MPs are entitled to a pay rise while your average person gets made redundant, people are questioning why people fleeing persecution should ‘be paid for with my…

[flagged]

> The migrants on the boats are not people fleeing persecution. Firstly these boats are coming from France. Are you claiming that France is persecuting people?

So do you think that after you get a couple miles away from something, you're no longer fleeing it when you keep going? An argument like this doesn't make you sound very credible.

> These men claim they are children.

What percent of the migrants are you talking about here?

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#700

Post by EB-Barrington »

throawaywpg wrote: post #311
cs02rm0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're se…

Why stay in a declining 1st word country when you can move to Bulgaria and live like a king?

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