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As opposed to all those capitalist governments that are trying their best to preserve the privacy of their citizens? And good job on defending what capitalism

As opposed to all those capitalist governments that are trying their best to preserve the privacy of their citizens? And good job on defending what capitalism is supposed to be, rather than what it is.

protomyth 9y ago
In the face of adversity, principles are worth defending. What is can be changed as long as you keep the lights on and don’t let others redefine those principles.
valuearb 9y ago
Because East German citizens had so much privacy.
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  So, when you say 'socialism', you of course don't mean all the social democracies where taxes are used for welfare (literally a small dose of 'from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs')? And when you say capitalism, you of course don't mean China or Russia, with their terrible human rights records, despite their economies being very capitalistic? You mean the USA, right? But all the spying and surveillance it does (along with many other countries - the UK comes to mind) doesn't matter, because East Germany was worse. No, those aren't true capitalist countries. What you mean is some Randian utopia of Free Markets and Free People that will totally exist, as soon as you find a perfect, incorruptible government to maintain it. Or perhaps surveillance, repression, and social policies are somewhat orthogonal.
- freeflight 9y ago
  Some would argue they had more privacy than we have today. Stasi had to put in a lot of effort and manpower to do what they did back then. Nowadays we have replaced manpower with technology, case in point: https://apps.opendatacity.de/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html https://apps.opendatacity.de/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html Everybody has their personal tracking device/diary with them at all times. Now we are even starting to spread surveillance devices all around our homes like it's the most normal thing in the world to have a telescreen (1984) like device in the middle of our living rooms. Sure it might not have the same purpose as telescreens in Oceania, but functionally they are already there and even Orwell couldn't have predicted the surveillance possibilities of massive scale smartphone adoption.

protomyth 9y ago

In the face of adversity, principles are worth defending. What is can be changed as long as you keep the lights on and don’t let others redefine those principles.

valuearb 9y ago

Because East German citizens had so much privacy.

DarkKomunalec 9y ago
So, when you say 'socialism', you of course don't mean all the social democracies where taxes are used for welfare (literally a small dose of 'from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs')? And when you say capitalism, you of course don't mean China or Russia, with their terrible human rights records, despite their economies being very capitalistic? You mean the USA, right? But all the spying and surveillance it does (along with many other countries - the UK comes to mind) doesn't matter, because East Germany was worse. No, those aren't true capitalist countries. What you mean is some Randian utopia of Free Markets and Free People that will totally exist, as soon as you find a perfect, incorruptible government to maintain it. Or perhaps surveillance, repression, and social policies are somewhat orthogonal.
freeflight 9y ago
Some would argue they had more privacy than we have today. Stasi had to put in a lot of effort and manpower to do what they did back then. Nowadays we have replaced manpower with technology, case in point: https://apps.opendatacity.de/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html https://apps.opendatacity.de/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html Everybody has their personal tracking device/diary with them at all times. Now we are even starting to spread surveillance devices all around our homes like it's the most normal thing in the world to have a telescreen (1984) like device in the middle of our living rooms. Sure it might not have the same purpose as telescreens in Oceania, but functionally they are already there and even Orwell couldn't have predicted the surveillance possibilities of massive scale smartphone adoption.