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Was Russia really drawing many foreigners to begin with?

by xiaoma 10y ago

awinter-py 10y ago
it's not a russia issue, it's an everywhere issue. snowden stuff aside, police just got caught installing automatic listeners in california. texas police are trading license plate capture data to camera makers in exchange for free LPR equipment. Private companies are using surveillance technology on their employees and on their users.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  So how will this backfire? If it's an everywhere issue, then I doubt that it will result in e.g. mass migration towards the few places that won't do it; people have shown in practice that they do not "vote with their feet" (or with revolutions) unless the abuse escalates to either very severe state violence or very severe economic hardship. Sure, a minority of idealists will do so, but in the thousands, not in the millions. That doesn't matter in the large scale - to do so, it would have to match something like the jewish and other refugee flow from central europe in 1930ies. Currently, for every talented person that would consider leaving USA for political reasons, there are ten or hundred talented people that would rather come to USA for economic reasons, even if their current country doesn't do much or any surveillance.
  - awinter-py 10y ago
    The primary issue isn't the fact that people will leave, it's their reason for leaving -- surveillance-based policing makes life uncertain and work inefficient. Top-down societies will fail whether or not their innovators jump ship. Look at the shenzhen special economic zone in china; it evolved into something special because entrepreneurs were able to act without extreme government control at every step. It's forgiveness vs permission. It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, i.e. it's more efficient. But surveillance-based law creates a permission society. Opportunities to fail or break the rules are also opportunities to succeed. You can't say 'we're only going to allow you to run the experiments that will work'.
shapov 10y ago
I think the point he was trying to make is that, this type of tech will drive talent out of countries such as Russia.

Was Russia really drawing many foreigners to begin with?

by xiaoma 10y ago

Was Russia really drawing many foreigners to begin with?

it's not a russia issue, it's an everywhere issue. snowden stuff aside, police just got caught installing automatic listeners in california. texas police are trading license plate capture data to camera makers in exchange for free LPR equipment. Private companies are using surveillance technology on their employees and on their users.

PeterisP 10y ago
So how will this backfire? If it's an everywhere issue, then I doubt that it will result in e.g. mass migration towards the few places that won't do it; people have shown in practice that they do not "vote with their feet" (or with revolutions) unless the abuse escalates to either very severe state violence or very severe economic hardship. Sure, a minority of idealists will do so, but in the thousands, not in the millions. That doesn't matter in the large scale - to do so, it would have to match something like the jewish and other refugee flow from central europe in 1930ies. Currently, for every talented person that would consider leaving USA for political reasons, there are ten or hundred talented people that would rather come to USA for economic reasons, even if their current country doesn't do much or any surveillance.
- awinter-py 10y ago
  The primary issue isn't the fact that people will leave, it's their reason for leaving -- surveillance-based policing makes life uncertain and work inefficient. Top-down societies will fail whether or not their innovators jump ship. Look at the shenzhen special economic zone in china; it evolved into something special because entrepreneurs were able to act without extreme government control at every step. It's forgiveness vs permission. It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, i.e. it's more efficient. But surveillance-based law creates a permission society. Opportunities to fail or break the rules are also opportunities to succeed. You can't say 'we're only going to allow you to run the experiments that will work'.

shapov 10y ago

I think the point he was trying to make is that, this type of tech will drive talent out of countries such as Russia.