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What I don’t get is this: our governments - “ours” being the group of parliamentary democracies - routinely diss authoritarian ones such as China - and rightful

by eecc 6y ago

What I don’t get is this: our governments - “ours” being the group of parliamentary democracies - routinely diss authoritarian ones such as China - and rightfully so - for their violations against human rights, among which that to habeas corpus, privacy, and reasonable suspicion. To the point that we agonized over and sabotaged contact tracing apps, which could have helped a lot in fighting COVID, over claims to privacy and government control. Now this shit. Fuck it. You either are or you’re not. So if my privacy is to be made sausages, chopped and sold at the market for FB, ad-tech and spooks, then give me at least some upside! As it is, we’re just bovines with ear tags...

tomcooks 6y ago
The Chinese model works, and it's what every government wants. The rest is marketing.
- KoftaBob 6y ago
  It "works" if your priority is getting things done, but it absolutely does not work if you value liberty and personal freedom. Ask minority groups in China like Christians wanting to build a church or Uyghurs how well the model works.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Seems to me that the GP meant "it works for the government and politicians".
ricardobayes 6y ago
In my view privacy has more layers. It has layers of personal data (name, social security, medical records), user-produced data (your family photos), communication (chat) and metadata (ad tracking). Lately I have seen ad tracking put in the same group as personal data. I don't think they deserve the same level of protection. I think total privacy is fools' gold. We always ask for total transparency from our governments, yet if they ask even a little of it from us, it's bad. Why? Also, in our society, wanting too much of anything makes you a weirdo and an outcast. Why has advocating for total privacy become normal(ized)?
- yrgulation 6y ago
  But who are “they” to “ask even a little of it from us”. With all due respect but this sounds as if “they” are not the people we send there to manage _our_ countries, but rather a cast of all loving all watching overloads that we should feed a bit of our freedoms now and then to keep us fed, safe and well. And we all know how that worked in history.
  - ricardobayes 6y ago
    Well we just saw with covid how it works out if everyone gets to do what they want. Too much freedom is just as harmful as too little. I would argue the only working model was the ancient Romans', having two leaders, a wartime leader and a 'fair-weather one'. It also requires the population to be grown-up enough to know their freedoms can and should be limited at times for their own good. No wonder why 'full citizenship' was rather limited in Rome.
    - logicchains 6y ago
      >Too much freedom is just as harmful as too little. Covid killed what, 0.1% of the population at most, and the average age of death was over 80. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot killed well over an order of magnitude more than that.
      - ben_w 6y ago
        It killed 0.185% of the UK with restrictions in place that limited the infections to 6.28% of the population. Unconstrained spread would’ve been a bit over one order of magnitude worse, even if that hypothetical somehow managed to avoid overwhelming the NHS with exponential growth making half of all cases happen in the final doubling period.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
intricatedetail 6y ago
Western governments project. They accuse enemy of something while doing the very thing. In the end humans in power develop the same desires and aim to fulfil them regardless of political framework.
cambalache 6y ago
Because you are taking the government criticism of other countries at face value. This is not a case of a well intended but barely self-aware organization or even some ideological zealots not giving pause to its enemies. This is just propaganda, pure and simple, they dont give a damn about the Uighurs, freedom of the press or democracy in general, they have an economical and geopolitical adversary who is getting stronger year after year so they will attack it. That boogeyman role has been played by Spain by France by Nazi Germany by the USSR by Japan,by Lybia,by Iraq,by Iran and now by China,For the powerful a foreign enemy is perfect: - It gives justification to obscene spending on the military - It justifies imperialist actions which violates international law - It blinds the local populacy with "patriotism" - It allows to create draconian local policies which would not be accepted in "peaceful times" - It protects the government because any local or foreign criticism can be discarded by using _whataboutism_ about the enemy du jour. Oldest trick in the book.
pjc50 6y ago
The UK has never been especially supportive of human rights; it has a tradition of a sort of live-and-let-live native libertarianism, which is why we don't have ID cards (+), but it also has the tradition of imperialist repression techniques which means that the public are broadly supportive of the military shooting people in the street if they think they might be terrorists. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-manifesto-human-rights-act-update-boris-johnson-national-security-a9216146.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-... (+) however, you need an ID card if you're an immigrant, or want to open a bank account, rent or buy a house, or have a job.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Honestly this 'we dont have an Id card' business just gets you the same result, but more chaotic and disorganised
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Also means you need multiple different forms of identity, at least based on my previous experiences with the UK banking and real estate systems. It’s not even amazingly secure. A few years ago a TV news investigator managed to get a provisional driving license in the name of the blind then-Home Secretary, David Blunkett.
feralimal 6y ago
What helps, I find, is to think of governments as administrations. The civil service does implements whatever it has been told. Politicians are voted in - this is a slight of hand to distract the public. (I think of politics as a soap opera for the middle classes.) All the while the real governors operate through global undemocratic organisations, such as the UN and the WHO.
- bregma 6y ago
  The UN and the WHO are not covert control operations but simply troughs where the friends of the rich can feed. The real governors operate from their country clubs and banquettes. No proper kingmaker would be so obvious as to grab headlines or make public announcements. Where is the personal enrichment in that? A simple rule of thumb: if you know who they are, they're not the people in control.

by eecc 6y ago

tomcooks 6y ago

The Chinese model works, and it's what every government wants. The rest is marketing.

KoftaBob 6y ago
It "works" if your priority is getting things done, but it absolutely does not work if you value liberty and personal freedom. Ask minority groups in China like Christians wanting to build a church or Uyghurs how well the model works.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Seems to me that the GP meant "it works for the government and politicians".

ricardobayes 6y ago

In my view privacy has more layers. It has layers of personal data (name, social security, medical records), user-produced data (your family photos), communication (chat) and metadata (ad tracking). Lately I have seen ad tracking put in the same group as personal data. I don't think they deserve the same level of protection. I think total privacy is fools' gold. We always ask for total transparency from our governments, yet if they ask even a little of it from us, it's bad. Why? Also, in our society, wanting too much of anything makes you a weirdo and an outcast. Why has advocating for total privacy become normal(ized)?

yrgulation 6y ago
But who are “they” to “ask even a little of it from us”. With all due respect but this sounds as if “they” are not the people we send there to manage _our_ countries, but rather a cast of all loving all watching overloads that we should feed a bit of our freedoms now and then to keep us fed, safe and well. And we all know how that worked in history.
- ricardobayes 6y ago
  Well we just saw with covid how it works out if everyone gets to do what they want. Too much freedom is just as harmful as too little. I would argue the only working model was the ancient Romans', having two leaders, a wartime leader and a 'fair-weather one'. It also requires the population to be grown-up enough to know their freedoms can and should be limited at times for their own good. No wonder why 'full citizenship' was rather limited in Rome.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    >Too much freedom is just as harmful as too little. Covid killed what, 0.1% of the population at most, and the average age of death was over 80. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot killed well over an order of magnitude more than that.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      It killed 0.185% of the UK with restrictions in place that limited the infections to 6.28% of the population. Unconstrained spread would’ve been a bit over one order of magnitude worse, even if that hypothetical somehow managed to avoid overwhelming the NHS with exponential growth making half of all cases happen in the final doubling period.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
ClumsyPilot 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

intricatedetail 6y ago

Western governments project. They accuse enemy of something while doing the very thing. In the end humans in power develop the same desires and aim to fulfil them regardless of political framework.

cambalache 6y ago

Because you are taking the government criticism of other countries at face value. This is not a case of a well intended but barely self-aware organization or even some ideological zealots not giving pause to its enemies. This is just propaganda, pure and simple, they dont give a damn about the Uighurs, freedom of the press or democracy in general, they have an economical and geopolitical adversary who is getting stronger year after year so they will attack it. That boogeyman role has been played by Spain by France by Nazi Germany by the USSR by Japan,by Lybia,by Iraq,by Iran and now by China,For the powerful a foreign enemy is perfect: - It gives justification to obscene spending on the military - It justifies imperialist actions which violates international law - It blinds the local populacy with "patriotism" - It allows to create draconian local policies which would not be accepted in "peaceful times" - It protects the government because any local or foreign criticism can be discarded by using _whataboutism_ about the enemy du jour. Oldest trick in the book.

pjc50 6y ago

The UK has never been especially supportive of human rights; it has a tradition of a sort of live-and-let-live native libertarianism, which is why we don't have ID cards (+), but it also has the tradition of imperialist repression techniques which means that the public are broadly supportive of the military shooting people in the street if they think they might be terrorists. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-manifesto-human-rights-act-update-boris-johnson-national-security-a9216146.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-... (+) however, you need an ID card if you're an immigrant, or want to open a bank account, rent or buy a house, or have a job.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Honestly this 'we dont have an Id card' business just gets you the same result, but more chaotic and disorganised
- ben_w 6y ago
  Also means you need multiple different forms of identity, at least based on my previous experiences with the UK banking and real estate systems. It’s not even amazingly secure. A few years ago a TV news investigator managed to get a provisional driving license in the name of the blind then-Home Secretary, David Blunkett.

feralimal 6y ago

What helps, I find, is to think of governments as administrations. The civil service does implements whatever it has been told. Politicians are voted in - this is a slight of hand to distract the public. (I think of politics as a soap opera for the middle classes.) All the while the real governors operate through global undemocratic organisations, such as the UN and the WHO.

bregma 6y ago
The UN and the WHO are not covert control operations but simply troughs where the friends of the rich can feed. The real governors operate from their country clubs and banquettes. No proper kingmaker would be so obvious as to grab headlines or make public announcements. Where is the personal enrichment in that? A simple rule of thumb: if you know who they are, they're not the people in control.