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>The figth will only start after enough innocent surveillance victims are harmed in the real world (i.e. their data is leaked or worse) Sadly I doubt even this

>The figth will only start after enough innocent surveillance victims are harmed in the real world (i.e. their data is leaked or worse) Sadly I doubt even this will happen. I lived in China and watched the CCP built their digital surveillance state. Like others say most people don't care because they have comfortable lives and/or are concerned with other issues they find more pressing. And so what if the government looks at my holiday pictures, they think. What they don't realize is that it may not make a noticeable difference to them personally at first. But slowly the effects ripple through society. Independent journalism becomes risky, political activism gets pushed into the underground. It affects the people keeping our societies sound and healthy first. Once they're gone, it only gets worse and worse, because there's no one to keep the government in check anymore. By the time the ordinary citizen wakes up and realizes they're living in a dystopian nightmare it's way too late. In China there is 0 resistance anymore. Among the last ones were the Uyghur seperatists and you may know how that ended. Now is the time to fight back! Do not wait until the damage is irreparable. And in an ever more globalized world, we the people also need to unite globally and support each other.

dijksterhuis 5y ago
> And so what if the government looks at my holiday pictures, they think. Holiday pics, sure. Dick pics? Joe public doesn't like that one! https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=24m53s https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=24m53s
Popegaf 5y ago
The reason people don't think it's bad to lose their privacy, is the same as why they don't take climate change seriously: the effects are more than a year out. Most likely they won't even feel the effects directly in their lifetime. On another note, have Chinese citizens ever been "free" since the one party system?
- pasabagi 5y ago
  Freedom is not a binary state. In the UK, new laws are being brought in to ban demonstrations that cause annoyance. Does that make the UK unfree? It makes some people less free, but is it sufficient? Again, in the UK, the first-past-the-post voting system is widely understood to produce governments that don't reflect voter desires. Is that enough to say the country is not a democracy? It makes it less democratic than, say, PR countries like Germany. I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures - and while the legal structures in China have changed just a little, the norms of government behaviour have shifted an enormous amount in the last ten years.
  - Popegaf 5y ago
    > I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures That sounds like a reasonable take. I like it. I wonder how many Chinese are actually OK with the system as it is and how many aren't.
    - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
      What pasabagi wrote is a very good summary of the situation, I agree with that. As for how many people support the system it's impossible to say right now because people can't speak their mind anymore since Xi took power, it's gotten dangerous. Before when the internet was still relatively uncensored the majority of the comments regarding the government was negative. If it hadn't been they'd not have needed such a massive censorship apparatus in the first place, don't you think? Internet users were mainly younger people though. From my experience in real life I'd say it might have been about 50/50 support vs opposition. Not that it's in any way representative.

dijksterhuis 5y ago

> And so what if the government looks at my holiday pictures, they think. Holiday pics, sure. Dick pics? Joe public doesn't like that one! https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=24m53s https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=24m53s

Popegaf 5y ago

The reason people don't think it's bad to lose their privacy, is the same as why they don't take climate change seriously: the effects are more than a year out. Most likely they won't even feel the effects directly in their lifetime. On another note, have Chinese citizens ever been "free" since the one party system?

pasabagi 5y ago
Freedom is not a binary state. In the UK, new laws are being brought in to ban demonstrations that cause annoyance. Does that make the UK unfree? It makes some people less free, but is it sufficient? Again, in the UK, the first-past-the-post voting system is widely understood to produce governments that don't reflect voter desires. Is that enough to say the country is not a democracy? It makes it less democratic than, say, PR countries like Germany. I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures - and while the legal structures in China have changed just a little, the norms of government behaviour have shifted an enormous amount in the last ten years.
- Popegaf 5y ago
  > I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures That sounds like a reasonable take. I like it. I wonder how many Chinese are actually OK with the system as it is and how many aren't.
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    What pasabagi wrote is a very good summary of the situation, I agree with that. As for how many people support the system it's impossible to say right now because people can't speak their mind anymore since Xi took power, it's gotten dangerous. Before when the internet was still relatively uncensored the majority of the comments regarding the government was negative. If it hadn't been they'd not have needed such a massive censorship apparatus in the first place, don't you think? Internet users were mainly younger people though. From my experience in real life I'd say it might have been about 50/50 support vs opposition. Not that it's in any way representative.