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It is so crazy to see most "democracies" around the world to follow track of dictatorial countries like China, Russia, North Korea,... We are now on the downwa

It is so crazy to see most "democracies" around the world to follow track of dictatorial countries like China, Russia, North Korea,... We are now on the downward trend of civil rights everywhere. This makes me very worried. Is it that we are following the pattern described in Animal Farm of Orwell?

jonnybgood 4y ago
What’s with the hyperbole? Following North Korea? And following China with their concentration camps? Everywhere? I don’t know. The US has been on a civil rights uptrend in the last 100 years. Such short memories.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  It’s not hyperbole to say our Fourth amendment rights are considerably weaker than they’ve ever been. One hundred years ago a person could communicate freely without any possibility of the government monitoring. Government monitoring of citizen conversations and communications is now the default. For everyone. All the time. Not even with probable cause!
  - jonnybgood 4y ago
    It’s an absolute hyperbole to come to the conclusion we’re on a downtrend in civil rights and becoming China, NK, and Russia because of one issue.
    - Bakary 4y ago
      The last part is indeed hyperbolic, but I don't see how you can witness the last few years of American political life and conclude the equivalent of "it can't happen here."
- goodluckchuck 4y ago
  In terms of following China, Russia, etc. there have been significant moves that affect the whole population in ways that are very important. - Reduced access to firearms (safety, individual power) - Social Security and Medicare (financial independence, retirement, health) - Mandatory health insurance (health and financial freedom). - Formerly abortion (much less than 50%). Gains have been for increasingly small groups. - Sexual preference (affects about ~5% of population). - Transgender (<1%). Then things like the Supreme Court’s recent gun cases have mostly just foreclosed future restrictions, but haven’t increased access to those sorts of small arms that would be needed in an e.g. Ukraine-type situation. This obviously leaves the American people closer to Russian, Chinese, etc in terms of their capacity forcibly defend their rights.
  - jonnybgood 4y ago
    So the stuff you care about is not going the way you want we’re becoming like China, NK, and Russia? That’s what it sounds like. Why the disregard for minority groups? Or is it only what you care about that matters?
  - foldr 4y ago
    >Gains have been for increasingly small groups. It's a common misperception that gay/trans rights only benefit gay and trans people. Fundamentally, gay and trans rights arise from an understanding than men don't have to do certain things a certain way merely because they're men and women don't have to do things a certain way merely because they're women. This understanding benefits anyone who's not a completely stereotypical man or woman.
    - retrofog 4y ago
      This is true for gay people, but not for those who identify as trans. Instead, their activism seeks to fundamentally redefine women and men as based on gender identity, rather than sex. I mean, it would be great if males who enjoy doing things that are stereotypically considered feminine, like applying lipstick and wearing skirts and dresses and so on, would acknowledge that they are men challenging restrictive gender norms. Instead, most of them want to be regarded as women both legally and socially. In my opinion, this is a step backwards, as it embraces stereotypes rather than challenging them. It's also incompatible with gay rights as previously understood, because this activism redefines sexuality in terms of gender identity instead of sex.
      - foldr 4y ago
        I think you’re completely wrong to suggest that people who advocate for trans rights are opposed to cis men or women engaging in gender non-typical behavior. But as always in such cases, it would lead to a much better discussion if you’d point to specific examples rather than “trans activism” in general. You are right of course that there should be room for men or women to behave in a gender non-typical way without the assumption that they must therefore be trans. I’m skeptical of the suggestion that it’s trans people or advocates for trans rights who are confused about the distinction between being trans and behaving in a gender non-typical manner. We’re in fact making progress in both dimensions, which suggests that they are not particularly opposed. For example, legal recognition of trans rights is slowly increasing, while we’re also seeing cis men being more comfortable with non-traditional dress or make up (see e.g. Harry Styles).
mrtri 4y ago
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atdrummond 4y ago
I always find it interesting that “democracy” has come to mean so much more than just the electoral system that provides the government. I guess I’m unsurprised that some democracies would be open and vibrant societies and others would have much more restrictive views of civil liberties and privacy. (Not saying that’s a good thing, mind you.)
- pfortuny 4y ago
  People conflate democracy with the rule of law. That is strange, but it is so. In all these examples, what is lacking is the rule of law, as in the FISA courts: they can do something secretly and without accountability. There have been monarchies and dictatorships in which the rule of law was more widespread than in the present US and possibly more countries which describe themselves as “democracies”.
  - lbeltrame 4y ago
    To be fairly honest, the rule of law in most European countries has been greatly eroded over the past two years. Mostly with support from the people themselves, I might add.
    - happymellon 4y ago
      > To be fairly honest, the rule of law in most European countries has been greatly eroded over the past two years. Mostly with support from the people themselves, I might add. Do you have any examples of how the "rule of law" has been eroded in Europe with a positive public reaction? I can't think of any times where the people have cheered that the law was being wilfully broken. It was the final straw for kicking the last UK PM out. I might agree that governments care less about their public appearance due to many factors, but it doesn't seem to ever come with public goodwill.
      - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
        Rule of law and breaking the law are two very different things. As for examples, look at the Dutch childcare benefits scandal. That alone should tell you enough about why GP claims the rule of law not only being eroded, but also why the majority is doing this to itself. It was a massive scandal with huge consequences for many victims. Yet, many individuals still haven't been fully compensated, the news has largely stopped reporting it, the majority has stopped caring, and the authorities in question have barely changed their modus operandi.
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
I'm not sure what you expect from a democracy to magically fix the issue of a minority of people selected primarily on good will by the majority, just so that majority doesn't have to care anymore. The past century, information has exploded and the mental strain on individuals has increased massively. It's trivial to hide most of this information and these decisions, when major news outlets won't digest and show them to the people. Even digests are largely outrage for a day, only for people to return to the status quo. We don't even elect individuals who know much about technology. On top of that, we have trouble electing individuals capable of solving problems they should know about. Problems that are far more noticeable and immediate to the common folk. Heck, the majority of voters are still technology illiterate.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  Seems to me, with all this technology and information, humanity is still limited by Dunbar's Number. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/live/976_549/images/live/p0/7p/qn/p07pqnp0.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/live/976_549/images/live...
- trinsic2 4y ago
  > The past century, information has exploded and the mental strain on individuals has increased massively. It's trivial to hide most of this information and these decisions, when major news outlets won't digest and show them to the people. Even digests are largely outrage for a day, only for people to return to the status quo. I like this. Mental strain is an important side effect to what is going on. Strain from information overload I think, and powers expect this and use it to there advantage.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
Actually if you follow Dutch politics you'd know this IS the will of the people. The common man is not a libertarian hacker.
- jobstijl 4y ago
  This is not the will of the people in the Netherlands. We had a referendum a few years ago about the laws for spying (sleepwet). Their was a clear vote for not allowing bulk spying. The rules that currently are broken down where made in reaction to that referendum.
  - tgv 4y ago
    I've looked up the figures again: 51.5% turnout, of which 49.4% was against, 46.5% in favor. That's not a clear vote, and the political climate hasn't really become more favorable since.
    - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
      That's a pretty clear "hey government, how about you stop trying to push things through and do some more asking around whether people actually want this" if you'd ask me. Of course, it's easier to just keep trying and altering your methods until people give in from exhaustion / negligence, rather than actually figuring out whether the people want it.
tgv 4y ago
The Netherlands is still quite far from being North Korea. And Animal Farm is about communism. You might be thinking of 1984, but that's quite the reach too. Of course it is worrying that secret services get more power, but > We are now on the downward trend of civil rights everywhere. This makes me very worried. when civil rights get abused or the rule of law cannot be upheld, society and the goverment have to react. There is no easy fix for this. I wish they'd expand the powers of intelligence services more carefully, but such is not the political climate at the moment. And please, don't put democracies between scare quotes. You're not quoting the article.
- greatgib 4y ago
  First, democracy between quotes as it emphases the word as a concept. Second, if you just think that the book was just about communism, then you did not understand it very well. The morale of the book is the "people" throwing out what they see as dictators abusing them, replacing it by a democracy/ free society. But then, the people enslave themselves to go little by little into another from of dictature. But they drive themselves to the butcher voluntarily by allowing each time new restrictions on their liberties and rights because it looks justified. Not realizing where this is leading them and forgetting the past. They think that they have free will but they don't really have because they are manipulated. It happens that communism implementation did fit very well into this pattern. But if you look at it, communist China and Russia also pretends to be kind of democracy and only the voice of their people.
  - olddustytrail 4y ago
    No, it doesn't just happen to resemble it. Animal Farm is a very direct allegory of the Russian Communist Revolution. Napoleon the pig represents Stalin for example. The Wikipedia page covers it fairly extensively: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
    - trinsic2 4y ago
      Those allegories are used as a tool to make you aware of individual moral issues surrounding how tyranny is created by the individual. Life is not all about political distinctions. In fact, political distinctions (I.E Communism), can blind an individual from many realities.
msravi 4y ago
It always was that way. The only thing that's changed is that information that was tightly controlled by governments via a small but powerful set of mainstream media channels to advance the notion of an open society that played by a tight set of rules and respect for civil rights has started to unravel by the democratization of news disbursal.
- seydor 4y ago
  That's misleading. The governments had nowhere near the control of information that modern technology allows them. Look at which governments are most enthusiastic to use social media against their own citizens, primary in the list are authoritarian, even small underdeveloped countries like Myanmar and azerbaijan. https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-september-report/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-coordinated-inaut... Technology has made it real easy And it is really shameful that the EU seems to go along with this trend. GDPR basically gives free reign to government services on the internet (but it restricts everyone else). And it has avoided all discussion of the increased censorship because of the usual suspects (cchildren/terrorism)
  - eternalban 4y ago
    Yes. This was anticipated and salivated over by the likes of Zbigniew K. Brzezinski. https://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Ages-Americas-Technetronic/dp/0313234981 https://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Ages-Americas-Technetroni... https://archive.org/details/B-001-003-798 https://archive.org/details/B-001-003-798 (for the pdf)
  - msravi 4y ago
    Your experience might be different, but that in no way makes what I said misleading. I have personally seen how a newspaper will misreport or tactically omit a piece of information to advance a government or powerful group's viewpoint, only to be outed on twitter. And I can only marvel at how we would have swallowed that as the whole truth just a few years ago!
    - 4y ago
guilhas 4y ago
Yes, to beat China we have to become China /s
koonsolo 4y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as long as citizens can vote on their leaders, you have a democracy. This has nothing to do with how much power the government has or wants over its citizens. As long as they can vote on different representatives, I don't see a problem for "democracy". I do however see a problem with privacy and freedom, or like you say, a downward trend of civil rights.
- switch007 4y ago
  That’s a very weak definition of democracy We have a democracy in name only. We elect people who rubber stamp laws that have been written by lobbyists. We elect people from a pool of people many of who are running only because of donations from rich people and organisations with agendas, or that they are rich enough themselves and move in certain circles.
- dekken_ 4y ago
  Even if you can vote, it doesn't mean your vote matters. Breaking campaign promises is not a crime anywhere that I know of.
- Emigre_ 4y ago
  The notion of democracy has evolved over time and nowadays is commonly understood to be a gradient, encompassing a number of democratic indicators in addition to free and fair elections: freedom of press, freedom of assembly, respect for the individual, civil rights... There are a number of 'democratic indexes' like the Freedom in the World index by Freedom House and The Economist's Democracy Index. A contry can score low even if technically its citizens are able to vote. You can read more about democracy in an excellent book by Bernard Crick, 'Democracy: A Very Short Introduction' (2002), by Oxford University Press.
  - shlurpy 4y ago
    The biggest trick ever played by the ruling elite was convincing people that private property rights and capitalism were somehow related to and necessary for democracy. Democracy should be that power comes from the people, but wealth creates unaccountable power structures that have far more power over the lives of most people then any government.
gdy 4y ago
Yes, but you are quite far from where Russia is, not to speak of China and North Korea. On the other hand, in Russia police don't use dogs against protesters, so maybe Netherlands are not that far.
vkou 4y ago
What's crazy about it? Most democracies have behaved in the way you decried for most of their lifespans. Just because some subset of the population is allowed to vote for representatives in parliament doesn't mean that parliament can't run an anti-citizen secret police... Or internal repression against a minority group. Or some imperialist horror-show. Or carry out an a aggressive invasion and occupation. Nothing about a democracy necessitates that it adhere to a 21st century humanist understanding of civil rights. Hell, if you're in the US, your local municipality is almost certainly both a democracy, and primarily exists to funnel your tax money into what is a frequently corrupt, unaccountable, and very anti-citizen police force. Nobody cares about fixing this state of affairs, because as long as its other people that are getting brutalized, I can sleep comfortably. And that's on a municipal level!
- Bakary 4y ago
  The 21st century humanist understanding was always predicated on a world order of massive inequality and international power balances. Now that non-Western countries are providing more competition, and Western countries are seeing their relative living standards drop, it's not a coincidence that humanist values are more wobbly than before.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Doesn't even have to be an international power imbalance, a municipal one is sufficient. Notice how the federal secret police is attacked in this thread, but as soon as I turn the conversation to the abuses of local police, HN consensus turns against me. People in the upper-middle class are afraid of the former, but have far less issue with brutality from the latter. The power imbalance it maintains is largely comfortable for us. I find it quite hypocritical, but that's also not something that democracy makes any guarantees about.
belter 4y ago
The most shocking, is not so much that governments, try to extend their authoritarian tendencies. It's that is happening in the UK, Australia, Netherlands and others, with broad support, from a coalition of very diverse parties from all across the political spectrum.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  That's the thing; the PARTIES support it, but the people in those parties won't be affected by this. This is the problem with democracy; it's the people's representatives making the decisions, not the people. And said representatives have stopped being representative a long time ago, most of them being born and growing up priviledged (think rich, private education) and career politicians, instead of e.g. a blue collar worker being given decision power for a while, or a true democratic system where people can (or, have to) vote on issues. I mean the latter isn't ideal but it feels more fair and democratic.
- greatgib 4y ago
  Indeed, this is the major problem. Worse dictatures are like example of what can be done but also, setting a floor so extreme in the worse that some people can use that to say that even if they restrict the civil rights, there is worse and we are so far from the dictatures measures that it is still ok and acceptable.
Bakary 4y ago
Ironically books like those of Orwell aren't particularly helpful, because they anthropomorphize too much. The idea of a downward trend of civil rights is also misleading, because it implies a separation of these rights from all the other material or cultural forces that are brushing up against each other at the same time. Tales like Animal Farm create the impression that all we have to do is to get 'the team' back together again and just align the liberal democracies around the old methods in a struggle of good vs. bad. We only have what we identify as civil rights from very specific material and historical conditions. It's not a coincidence that liberalism appeared around the same time that we first created a significant surplus during the industrial revolution.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > because they anthropomorphize too much You seem to be basing your view on a single book. Is there anthropomorphism in 1984? Homage to Catalonia? Consider also reading some of his essays, as well as his books. Orwell isn't all about pigs and horses. Animal Farm was a children's book.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    I'm not referring to the actual animals. To clarify what I meant: both Orwell and the ideas we have about civil rights tend to focus too much on the individual human's perspective of seeing rights evolve or the moral and emotional rejection of totalitarianism at an individual scale. It is the systems that are being anthropomorphized. You kind of see this habit unfold in his essays where he talks about pacifists or his disappointment with socialists. This is what makes his work so compelling to read, however, so I don't blame him at all. Perhaps 1984 itself is amusingly the best example to explain this argument. The main character's travails and the lessons therein are too anthropomorphic, but the initial insight Orwell had that would lead to the book's premise is much more interesting: the idea that nuclear weapons would either favor large authoritarian states or small groups depending on their ease of production.[0] Maybe anthropomorphically is the wrong word to use here, and I should simply have said thinking of systems vs. thinking of stories. You can see the difference by reading Orwell's theoretical vs. more human scale essays and books, but it's his human scale that is almost exclusively remembered by most people in his case. Although I love that book, Homage to Catalonia is no less a children's story than Animal Farm. [0] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/you-and-the-atom-bomb/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
rocqua 4y ago
What's interesting is the justification for this change. It is not the typical "oh no terrorism" or "think of the children". Its specifically "nation states with an offensive cyber programme" (e.g. China, Russia, probably not US because ally). That is a new argumentation for an expansion of powers, and to me it feels like a better one (note, I have no idea whether this expansion of powers actually is limited to only the stated goal).
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  I don't see why "oh no China" is any better than "oh no groomers". It's the usual, they provide some rationalities, they provide some numbers as to the problem, but the predicted effects are largely missing numbers and the entire thing comes across as fearmongering. And of course, an absolutely certainty that these things are necessary "for the good of the country/people". Bonus points: it is proposed after a related event happened just recently.
  - rocqua 4y ago
    I think its a better excuse, because I believe the danger of terrorists / danger to children are exagerated, whilst I believe the danger of Chinese hacking is much more real.
ajross 4y ago
> "democracies" [...] follow track of dictatorial countries [...] now on the downward trend of civil rights [...] following the pattern described in Animal Farm This just isn't correct. In fact democratic government around the world are, almost universally, more transparent and more accountable than they ever have been. The kind of abuses details here have been done in the past, the only thing that changes is the tools used to do it. So, sure, the Netherlands may try to roll back regulation. But their senior civil servants quit if they try. The NSA may hoover up the whole of the internet, but Snowden leaks it anyway and the industry moves to pervasive HTTPS. Things are better, not worse. This kind of fatalism serves no one except conspiracy theorists and extremists.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Not necessarily. If things are going much better, but people are still pessimistic, they’ll keep pushing to keep things going in the right direction.
  - ajross 4y ago
    My experience is that the more people hear nonsense like this, the more they "keep pushing" at the wrong things, like for example attacking the seat of government during a transfer of power. If you want people to think that they can improve things democratically (and they can), telling them we're becoming a totalitarian state inspired by Animal Farm is not the way to do it.
    - beebeepka 4y ago
      What is the right way to do it? Because sugar coating is not helping at all. The majority seems to like it.
      - trinsic2 4y ago
        I think if we look to aesthetic principles like the "Solarpunk" movement which came out of the dystopian example of "Cyberpunk". We create positive change by reinventing our visions of the future, not by tell people where we are headed. Deep down, we already know where we are headed, we just need to encourage a course correction like the example above.
IAmGraydon 4y ago
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. In this case, that power comes from new technology.
- trinsic2 4y ago
  I don't think blaming tech is going to help. Technology is a tool, tools are just byproducts that help us to see what is already going on.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
The ruling class considers any power held by the people to be a theft of their natural rights, they'll never stop their struggle to restore that "injustice". Free democracies might just be an aberration in the history of our species where a lucky coincidence of culture, education, technology happened to tip the balance slightly in favor of the commoners in a few countries for a few generations.
Consultant32452 4y ago
Exponential growth of our economy stopped around the 1970s. A lot of our social paradigms are built on this exponential growth. Example: each university professor creates/trains x new university professors where x>1. Apply this to every industry everywhere. Without the artificial exponential growth potential created by population and recovery from world wars, resources are becoming more scarce. When resources are scarce the power structure picks someone to blame for the problem and the tyranny really starts. Could be racial minorities, the "wrong" political party, religious minorities, etc. It will be said they are a "threat" to the good people that are just trying to keep you safe or the good systems we have in place. This is going to happen everywhere across the world and it's going to have different flavors based on your culture.
mark_l_watson 4y ago
I think there are two things going on here: 1. Natural inclination to grab more power. 2. Governments and elites are worried about controlling a population in a future of infrastructure and supply chain collapse, and food shortages. For number 2., there seems very little work on mitigation, rather, just locking down control of the population.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  I think you're overestimating how much forward thinking is going on here. I think #1 big time not so much #2.
- trinsic2 4y ago
  This is a great insight. Thank you. I agree as we move further and further into food shortages and supply chain collapses, as I think about this, it would seem natural, and it appears to be apart of what people charge government to protect. (Even though the methods that are being used to protect the common good is not good, I.E authoritarian processes).
- zosima 4y ago
  In fact the dutch government seems to be actively working to worsen food shortages: https://time.com/6201951/dutch-farmers-protests-climate-action/ https://time.com/6201951/dutch-farmers-protests-climate-acti... So they'd seem to be worried about controlling a population while creating food shortages.
cmurf 4y ago
The struggle against tyranny is never ending.
andywood 4y ago
You think? Just read all the ones in black: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell But as so many even here keep repeating so idiotically, "We live in a society. We live in a society. We live in a society..." Gotta keep trading that liberty for more safety. Gotta keep 'em safe. Anyone see the new messages you get on Twitter when its AI pre-judges your tweet to be Intellectual Spam? Good job Twitter employees, if you're reading. Keep up the great work. Keep us safe from code points arranged in wrong orders.
- dbxkcichhdfufu 4y ago
  If alarm bells didn't go off when free speech became a dirty word on the left I don't know what to tell you.
  - darkhorse222 4y ago
    - ehvatum 4y ago
      Personally, because I support victims of oppression, any words that disagree with me are hate speech. Because everything I do is in service of victims of injustice, my actions are just. There is no “cycle of violence”, only hidden power structures of oppression to be destroyed.
    - dbxkcichhdfufu 4y ago
      Please define hate speech. Generalizing everyone that disagrees with you as "those types" and then calling me pathetic to group me in with them is exactly the problem is was alluding to.
    - Baloo 4y ago
      And who defines what constitutes as hate speech? If I tell you to jump from a bridge to your death, is it my fault for telling you or your fault for acting upon it? Punish actions, not words. The moment you punish peoples words, you remove the ability to debate, converse, express, rectify, understand.
verisimi 4y ago
We have 'representative democracy' NOT democracy - big difference. One is where everyone has a vote on every option, and the other is where one person (the representative) represents thousands (millions?) of people, for 4-5 years, making all the decisions on their behalf, with no repurcussions for that representative if they lie, cheat or enrich themselves in their role during that time. In fact, the representative only has to be perceived less bad than the other alternative, and they will likely get back in!
djfobbz 4y ago
USA is also headed in the same direction. I guess we can thank the New World Order initiative...SIKE! Be careful what you wish for, history has a way of repeating itself.
cies 4y ago
> most "democracies" around the world There were no democracies in the first place (probably that's why you quoted). If you accept lobbying (legalized corruption if you ask me), and the super rich pay less tax percentually than then middle class, it's not a functioning democracy in my book. > This makes me very worried. We worries me it that people still believe the "democracy" narrative. It is very clear now with Putin "invading a sovereign country"... While the US has been doing this over and over since WW2, now suddenly it is a problem, suddenly Putin is a dictator, Ukraine is democratic so must be helped, bla bla. It's just the next resource war, and frankly Putin plays it nicer than the US did in Iraq. > We are now on the downward trend of civil rights everywhere Yups, I think the 70s/80s were the peak of human civilization, and we're going down hill now.
arrosenberg 4y ago
Nothing has changed really, the Dulles brothers were proto-fascists and the western intelligence apparati still carry the legacy of that.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
It is especially ironic that the biggest proponents and advocates of expanded surveillance and police state powers are also those who cry loudest about the threats of "fascism". Nobody ever claims to be the fascist or the bad guy while they are accruing power and stripping you of your rights - it is always to protect against some (usually amorphous, exaggerated or invented) threat that requires it.

jonnybgood 4y ago

What’s with the hyperbole? Following North Korea? And following China with their concentration camps? Everywhere? I don’t know. The US has been on a civil rights uptrend in the last 100 years. Such short memories.

elliekelly 4y ago
It’s not hyperbole to say our Fourth amendment rights are considerably weaker than they’ve ever been. One hundred years ago a person could communicate freely without any possibility of the government monitoring. Government monitoring of citizen conversations and communications is now the default. For everyone. All the time. Not even with probable cause!
- jonnybgood 4y ago
  It’s an absolute hyperbole to come to the conclusion we’re on a downtrend in civil rights and becoming China, NK, and Russia because of one issue.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    The last part is indeed hyperbolic, but I don't see how you can witness the last few years of American political life and conclude the equivalent of "it can't happen here."
goodluckchuck 4y ago
In terms of following China, Russia, etc. there have been significant moves that affect the whole population in ways that are very important. - Reduced access to firearms (safety, individual power) - Social Security and Medicare (financial independence, retirement, health) - Mandatory health insurance (health and financial freedom). - Formerly abortion (much less than 50%). Gains have been for increasingly small groups. - Sexual preference (affects about ~5% of population). - Transgender (<1%). Then things like the Supreme Court’s recent gun cases have mostly just foreclosed future restrictions, but haven’t increased access to those sorts of small arms that would be needed in an e.g. Ukraine-type situation. This obviously leaves the American people closer to Russian, Chinese, etc in terms of their capacity forcibly defend their rights.
- jonnybgood 4y ago
  So the stuff you care about is not going the way you want we’re becoming like China, NK, and Russia? That’s what it sounds like. Why the disregard for minority groups? Or is it only what you care about that matters?
- foldr 4y ago
  >Gains have been for increasingly small groups. It's a common misperception that gay/trans rights only benefit gay and trans people. Fundamentally, gay and trans rights arise from an understanding than men don't have to do certain things a certain way merely because they're men and women don't have to do things a certain way merely because they're women. This understanding benefits anyone who's not a completely stereotypical man or woman.
  - retrofog 4y ago
    This is true for gay people, but not for those who identify as trans. Instead, their activism seeks to fundamentally redefine women and men as based on gender identity, rather than sex. I mean, it would be great if males who enjoy doing things that are stereotypically considered feminine, like applying lipstick and wearing skirts and dresses and so on, would acknowledge that they are men challenging restrictive gender norms. Instead, most of them want to be regarded as women both legally and socially. In my opinion, this is a step backwards, as it embraces stereotypes rather than challenging them. It's also incompatible with gay rights as previously understood, because this activism redefines sexuality in terms of gender identity instead of sex.
    - foldr 4y ago
      I think you’re completely wrong to suggest that people who advocate for trans rights are opposed to cis men or women engaging in gender non-typical behavior. But as always in such cases, it would lead to a much better discussion if you’d point to specific examples rather than “trans activism” in general. You are right of course that there should be room for men or women to behave in a gender non-typical way without the assumption that they must therefore be trans. I’m skeptical of the suggestion that it’s trans people or advocates for trans rights who are confused about the distinction between being trans and behaving in a gender non-typical manner. We’re in fact making progress in both dimensions, which suggests that they are not particularly opposed. For example, legal recognition of trans rights is slowly increasing, while we’re also seeing cis men being more comfortable with non-traditional dress or make up (see e.g. Harry Styles).

mrtri 4y ago

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atdrummond 4y ago

I always find it interesting that “democracy” has come to mean so much more than just the electoral system that provides the government. I guess I’m unsurprised that some democracies would be open and vibrant societies and others would have much more restrictive views of civil liberties and privacy. (Not saying that’s a good thing, mind you.)

pfortuny 4y ago
People conflate democracy with the rule of law. That is strange, but it is so. In all these examples, what is lacking is the rule of law, as in the FISA courts: they can do something secretly and without accountability. There have been monarchies and dictatorships in which the rule of law was more widespread than in the present US and possibly more countries which describe themselves as “democracies”.
- lbeltrame 4y ago
  To be fairly honest, the rule of law in most European countries has been greatly eroded over the past two years. Mostly with support from the people themselves, I might add.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    > To be fairly honest, the rule of law in most European countries has been greatly eroded over the past two years. Mostly with support from the people themselves, I might add. Do you have any examples of how the "rule of law" has been eroded in Europe with a positive public reaction? I can't think of any times where the people have cheered that the law was being wilfully broken. It was the final straw for kicking the last UK PM out. I might agree that governments care less about their public appearance due to many factors, but it doesn't seem to ever come with public goodwill.
    - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
      Rule of law and breaking the law are two very different things. As for examples, look at the Dutch childcare benefits scandal. That alone should tell you enough about why GP claims the rule of law not only being eroded, but also why the majority is doing this to itself. It was a massive scandal with huge consequences for many victims. Yet, many individuals still haven't been fully compensated, the news has largely stopped reporting it, the majority has stopped caring, and the authorities in question have barely changed their modus operandi.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

I'm not sure what you expect from a democracy to magically fix the issue of a minority of people selected primarily on good will by the majority, just so that majority doesn't have to care anymore. The past century, information has exploded and the mental strain on individuals has increased massively. It's trivial to hide most of this information and these decisions, when major news outlets won't digest and show them to the people. Even digests are largely outrage for a day, only for people to return to the status quo. We don't even elect individuals who know much about technology. On top of that, we have trouble electing individuals capable of solving problems they should know about. Problems that are far more noticeable and immediate to the common folk. Heck, the majority of voters are still technology illiterate.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
Seems to me, with all this technology and information, humanity is still limited by Dunbar's Number. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/live/976_549/images/live/p0/7p/qn/p07pqnp0.jpg https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/live/976_549/images/live...
trinsic2 4y ago
> The past century, information has exploded and the mental strain on individuals has increased massively. It's trivial to hide most of this information and these decisions, when major news outlets won't digest and show them to the people. Even digests are largely outrage for a day, only for people to return to the status quo. I like this. Mental strain is an important side effect to what is going on. Strain from information overload I think, and powers expect this and use it to there advantage.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

Actually if you follow Dutch politics you'd know this IS the will of the people. The common man is not a libertarian hacker.

jobstijl 4y ago
This is not the will of the people in the Netherlands. We had a referendum a few years ago about the laws for spying (sleepwet). Their was a clear vote for not allowing bulk spying. The rules that currently are broken down where made in reaction to that referendum.
- tgv 4y ago
  I've looked up the figures again: 51.5% turnout, of which 49.4% was against, 46.5% in favor. That's not a clear vote, and the political climate hasn't really become more favorable since.
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    That's a pretty clear "hey government, how about you stop trying to push things through and do some more asking around whether people actually want this" if you'd ask me. Of course, it's easier to just keep trying and altering your methods until people give in from exhaustion / negligence, rather than actually figuring out whether the people want it.

tgv 4y ago

The Netherlands is still quite far from being North Korea. And Animal Farm is about communism. You might be thinking of 1984, but that's quite the reach too. Of course it is worrying that secret services get more power, but > We are now on the downward trend of civil rights everywhere. This makes me very worried. when civil rights get abused or the rule of law cannot be upheld, society and the goverment have to react. There is no easy fix for this. I wish they'd expand the powers of intelligence services more carefully, but such is not the political climate at the moment. And please, don't put democracies between scare quotes. You're not quoting the article.

greatgib 4y ago
First, democracy between quotes as it emphases the word as a concept. Second, if you just think that the book was just about communism, then you did not understand it very well. The morale of the book is the "people" throwing out what they see as dictators abusing them, replacing it by a democracy/ free society. But then, the people enslave themselves to go little by little into another from of dictature. But they drive themselves to the butcher voluntarily by allowing each time new restrictions on their liberties and rights because it looks justified. Not realizing where this is leading them and forgetting the past. They think that they have free will but they don't really have because they are manipulated. It happens that communism implementation did fit very well into this pattern. But if you look at it, communist China and Russia also pretends to be kind of democracy and only the voice of their people.
- olddustytrail 4y ago
  No, it doesn't just happen to resemble it. Animal Farm is a very direct allegory of the Russian Communist Revolution. Napoleon the pig represents Stalin for example. The Wikipedia page covers it fairly extensively: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
  - trinsic2 4y ago
    Those allegories are used as a tool to make you aware of individual moral issues surrounding how tyranny is created by the individual. Life is not all about political distinctions. In fact, political distinctions (I.E Communism), can blind an individual from many realities.

msravi 4y ago

It always was that way. The only thing that's changed is that information that was tightly controlled by governments via a small but powerful set of mainstream media channels to advance the notion of an open society that played by a tight set of rules and respect for civil rights has started to unravel by the democratization of news disbursal.

seydor 4y ago
That's misleading. The governments had nowhere near the control of information that modern technology allows them. Look at which governments are most enthusiastic to use social media against their own citizens, primary in the list are authoritarian, even small underdeveloped countries like Myanmar and azerbaijan. https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-september-report/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/removing-coordinated-inaut... Technology has made it real easy And it is really shameful that the EU seems to go along with this trend. GDPR basically gives free reign to government services on the internet (but it restricts everyone else). And it has avoided all discussion of the increased censorship because of the usual suspects (cchildren/terrorism)
- eternalban 4y ago
  Yes. This was anticipated and salivated over by the likes of Zbigniew K. Brzezinski. https://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Ages-Americas-Technetronic/dp/0313234981 https://www.amazon.com/Between-Two-Ages-Americas-Technetroni... https://archive.org/details/B-001-003-798 https://archive.org/details/B-001-003-798 (for the pdf)
- msravi 4y ago
  Your experience might be different, but that in no way makes what I said misleading. I have personally seen how a newspaper will misreport or tactically omit a piece of information to advance a government or powerful group's viewpoint, only to be outed on twitter. And I can only marvel at how we would have swallowed that as the whole truth just a few years ago!
  - 4y ago

guilhas 4y ago

Yes, to beat China we have to become China /s

koonsolo 4y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as long as citizens can vote on their leaders, you have a democracy. This has nothing to do with how much power the government has or wants over its citizens. As long as they can vote on different representatives, I don't see a problem for "democracy". I do however see a problem with privacy and freedom, or like you say, a downward trend of civil rights.

switch007 4y ago
That’s a very weak definition of democracy We have a democracy in name only. We elect people who rubber stamp laws that have been written by lobbyists. We elect people from a pool of people many of who are running only because of donations from rich people and organisations with agendas, or that they are rich enough themselves and move in certain circles.
dekken_ 4y ago
Even if you can vote, it doesn't mean your vote matters. Breaking campaign promises is not a crime anywhere that I know of.
Emigre_ 4y ago
The notion of democracy has evolved over time and nowadays is commonly understood to be a gradient, encompassing a number of democratic indicators in addition to free and fair elections: freedom of press, freedom of assembly, respect for the individual, civil rights... There are a number of 'democratic indexes' like the Freedom in the World index by Freedom House and The Economist's Democracy Index. A contry can score low even if technically its citizens are able to vote. You can read more about democracy in an excellent book by Bernard Crick, 'Democracy: A Very Short Introduction' (2002), by Oxford University Press.
- shlurpy 4y ago
  The biggest trick ever played by the ruling elite was convincing people that private property rights and capitalism were somehow related to and necessary for democracy. Democracy should be that power comes from the people, but wealth creates unaccountable power structures that have far more power over the lives of most people then any government.

gdy 4y ago

Yes, but you are quite far from where Russia is, not to speak of China and North Korea. On the other hand, in Russia police don't use dogs against protesters, so maybe Netherlands are not that far.

vkou 4y ago

What's crazy about it? Most democracies have behaved in the way you decried for most of their lifespans. Just because some subset of the population is allowed to vote for representatives in parliament doesn't mean that parliament can't run an anti-citizen secret police... Or internal repression against a minority group. Or some imperialist horror-show. Or carry out an a aggressive invasion and occupation. Nothing about a democracy necessitates that it adhere to a 21st century humanist understanding of civil rights. Hell, if you're in the US, your local municipality is almost certainly both a democracy, and primarily exists to funnel your tax money into what is a frequently corrupt, unaccountable, and very anti-citizen police force. Nobody cares about fixing this state of affairs, because as long as its other people that are getting brutalized, I can sleep comfortably. And that's on a municipal level!

Bakary 4y ago
The 21st century humanist understanding was always predicated on a world order of massive inequality and international power balances. Now that non-Western countries are providing more competition, and Western countries are seeing their relative living standards drop, it's not a coincidence that humanist values are more wobbly than before.
- vkou 4y ago
  Doesn't even have to be an international power imbalance, a municipal one is sufficient. Notice how the federal secret police is attacked in this thread, but as soon as I turn the conversation to the abuses of local police, HN consensus turns against me. People in the upper-middle class are afraid of the former, but have far less issue with brutality from the latter. The power imbalance it maintains is largely comfortable for us. I find it quite hypocritical, but that's also not something that democracy makes any guarantees about.

belter 4y ago

The most shocking, is not so much that governments, try to extend their authoritarian tendencies. It's that is happening in the UK, Australia, Netherlands and others, with broad support, from a coalition of very diverse parties from all across the political spectrum.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
That's the thing; the PARTIES support it, but the people in those parties won't be affected by this. This is the problem with democracy; it's the people's representatives making the decisions, not the people. And said representatives have stopped being representative a long time ago, most of them being born and growing up priviledged (think rich, private education) and career politicians, instead of e.g. a blue collar worker being given decision power for a while, or a true democratic system where people can (or, have to) vote on issues. I mean the latter isn't ideal but it feels more fair and democratic.
greatgib 4y ago
Indeed, this is the major problem. Worse dictatures are like example of what can be done but also, setting a floor so extreme in the worse that some people can use that to say that even if they restrict the civil rights, there is worse and we are so far from the dictatures measures that it is still ok and acceptable.

Bakary 4y ago

Ironically books like those of Orwell aren't particularly helpful, because they anthropomorphize too much. The idea of a downward trend of civil rights is also misleading, because it implies a separation of these rights from all the other material or cultural forces that are brushing up against each other at the same time. Tales like Animal Farm create the impression that all we have to do is to get 'the team' back together again and just align the liberal democracies around the old methods in a struggle of good vs. bad. We only have what we identify as civil rights from very specific material and historical conditions. It's not a coincidence that liberalism appeared around the same time that we first created a significant surplus during the industrial revolution.

denton-scratch 4y ago
> because they anthropomorphize too much You seem to be basing your view on a single book. Is there anthropomorphism in 1984? Homage to Catalonia? Consider also reading some of his essays, as well as his books. Orwell isn't all about pigs and horses. Animal Farm was a children's book.
- Bakary 4y ago
  I'm not referring to the actual animals. To clarify what I meant: both Orwell and the ideas we have about civil rights tend to focus too much on the individual human's perspective of seeing rights evolve or the moral and emotional rejection of totalitarianism at an individual scale. It is the systems that are being anthropomorphized. You kind of see this habit unfold in his essays where he talks about pacifists or his disappointment with socialists. This is what makes his work so compelling to read, however, so I don't blame him at all. Perhaps 1984 itself is amusingly the best example to explain this argument. The main character's travails and the lessons therein are too anthropomorphic, but the initial insight Orwell had that would lead to the book's premise is much more interesting: the idea that nuclear weapons would either favor large authoritarian states or small groups depending on their ease of production.[0] Maybe anthropomorphically is the wrong word to use here, and I should simply have said thinking of systems vs. thinking of stories. You can see the difference by reading Orwell's theoretical vs. more human scale essays and books, but it's his human scale that is almost exclusively remembered by most people in his case. Although I love that book, Homage to Catalonia is no less a children's story than Animal Farm. [0] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/you-and-the-atom-bomb/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

rocqua 4y ago

What's interesting is the justification for this change. It is not the typical "oh no terrorism" or "think of the children". Its specifically "nation states with an offensive cyber programme" (e.g. China, Russia, probably not US because ally). That is a new argumentation for an expansion of powers, and to me it feels like a better one (note, I have no idea whether this expansion of powers actually is limited to only the stated goal).

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
I don't see why "oh no China" is any better than "oh no groomers". It's the usual, they provide some rationalities, they provide some numbers as to the problem, but the predicted effects are largely missing numbers and the entire thing comes across as fearmongering. And of course, an absolutely certainty that these things are necessary "for the good of the country/people". Bonus points: it is proposed after a related event happened just recently.
- rocqua 4y ago
  I think its a better excuse, because I believe the danger of terrorists / danger to children are exagerated, whilst I believe the danger of Chinese hacking is much more real.

ajross 4y ago

> "democracies" [...] follow track of dictatorial countries [...] now on the downward trend of civil rights [...] following the pattern described in Animal Farm This just isn't correct. In fact democratic government around the world are, almost universally, more transparent and more accountable than they ever have been. The kind of abuses details here have been done in the past, the only thing that changes is the tools used to do it. So, sure, the Netherlands may try to roll back regulation. But their senior civil servants quit if they try. The NSA may hoover up the whole of the internet, but Snowden leaks it anyway and the industry moves to pervasive HTTPS. Things are better, not worse. This kind of fatalism serves no one except conspiracy theorists and extremists.

Aeolun 4y ago
Not necessarily. If things are going much better, but people are still pessimistic, they’ll keep pushing to keep things going in the right direction.
- ajross 4y ago
  My experience is that the more people hear nonsense like this, the more they "keep pushing" at the wrong things, like for example attacking the seat of government during a transfer of power. If you want people to think that they can improve things democratically (and they can), telling them we're becoming a totalitarian state inspired by Animal Farm is not the way to do it.
  - beebeepka 4y ago
    What is the right way to do it? Because sugar coating is not helping at all. The majority seems to like it.
    - trinsic2 4y ago
      I think if we look to aesthetic principles like the "Solarpunk" movement which came out of the dystopian example of "Cyberpunk". We create positive change by reinventing our visions of the future, not by tell people where we are headed. Deep down, we already know where we are headed, we just need to encourage a course correction like the example above.

IAmGraydon 4y ago

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. In this case, that power comes from new technology.

trinsic2 4y ago
I don't think blaming tech is going to help. Technology is a tool, tools are just byproducts that help us to see what is already going on.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

The ruling class considers any power held by the people to be a theft of their natural rights, they'll never stop their struggle to restore that "injustice". Free democracies might just be an aberration in the history of our species where a lucky coincidence of culture, education, technology happened to tip the balance slightly in favor of the commoners in a few countries for a few generations.

Consultant32452 4y ago

Exponential growth of our economy stopped around the 1970s. A lot of our social paradigms are built on this exponential growth. Example: each university professor creates/trains x new university professors where x>1. Apply this to every industry everywhere. Without the artificial exponential growth potential created by population and recovery from world wars, resources are becoming more scarce. When resources are scarce the power structure picks someone to blame for the problem and the tyranny really starts. Could be racial minorities, the "wrong" political party, religious minorities, etc. It will be said they are a "threat" to the good people that are just trying to keep you safe or the good systems we have in place. This is going to happen everywhere across the world and it's going to have different flavors based on your culture.

mark_l_watson 4y ago

I think there are two things going on here: 1. Natural inclination to grab more power. 2. Governments and elites are worried about controlling a population in a future of infrastructure and supply chain collapse, and food shortages. For number 2., there seems very little work on mitigation, rather, just locking down control of the population.

idiotsecant 4y ago
I think you're overestimating how much forward thinking is going on here. I think #1 big time not so much #2.
trinsic2 4y ago
This is a great insight. Thank you. I agree as we move further and further into food shortages and supply chain collapses, as I think about this, it would seem natural, and it appears to be apart of what people charge government to protect. (Even though the methods that are being used to protect the common good is not good, I.E authoritarian processes).
zosima 4y ago
In fact the dutch government seems to be actively working to worsen food shortages: https://time.com/6201951/dutch-farmers-protests-climate-action/ https://time.com/6201951/dutch-farmers-protests-climate-acti... So they'd seem to be worried about controlling a population while creating food shortages.

cmurf 4y ago

The struggle against tyranny is never ending.

andywood 4y ago

You think? Just read all the ones in black: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell But as so many even here keep repeating so idiotically, "We live in a society. We live in a society. We live in a society..." Gotta keep trading that liberty for more safety. Gotta keep 'em safe. Anyone see the new messages you get on Twitter when its AI pre-judges your tweet to be Intellectual Spam? Good job Twitter employees, if you're reading. Keep up the great work. Keep us safe from code points arranged in wrong orders.

dbxkcichhdfufu 4y ago
If alarm bells didn't go off when free speech became a dirty word on the left I don't know what to tell you.
- darkhorse222 4y ago
  - ehvatum 4y ago
    Personally, because I support victims of oppression, any words that disagree with me are hate speech. Because everything I do is in service of victims of injustice, my actions are just. There is no “cycle of violence”, only hidden power structures of oppression to be destroyed.
  - dbxkcichhdfufu 4y ago
    Please define hate speech. Generalizing everyone that disagrees with you as "those types" and then calling me pathetic to group me in with them is exactly the problem is was alluding to.
  - Baloo 4y ago
    And who defines what constitutes as hate speech? If I tell you to jump from a bridge to your death, is it my fault for telling you or your fault for acting upon it? Punish actions, not words. The moment you punish peoples words, you remove the ability to debate, converse, express, rectify, understand.

verisimi 4y ago

We have 'representative democracy' NOT democracy - big difference. One is where everyone has a vote on every option, and the other is where one person (the representative) represents thousands (millions?) of people, for 4-5 years, making all the decisions on their behalf, with no repurcussions for that representative if they lie, cheat or enrich themselves in their role during that time. In fact, the representative only has to be perceived less bad than the other alternative, and they will likely get back in!

djfobbz 4y ago

USA is also headed in the same direction. I guess we can thank the New World Order initiative...SIKE! Be careful what you wish for, history has a way of repeating itself.

cies 4y ago

> most "democracies" around the world There were no democracies in the first place (probably that's why you quoted). If you accept lobbying (legalized corruption if you ask me), and the super rich pay less tax percentually than then middle class, it's not a functioning democracy in my book. > This makes me very worried. We worries me it that people still believe the "democracy" narrative. It is very clear now with Putin "invading a sovereign country"... While the US has been doing this over and over since WW2, now suddenly it is a problem, suddenly Putin is a dictator, Ukraine is democratic so must be helped, bla bla. It's just the next resource war, and frankly Putin plays it nicer than the US did in Iraq. > We are now on the downward trend of civil rights everywhere Yups, I think the 70s/80s were the peak of human civilization, and we're going down hill now.

arrosenberg 4y ago

Nothing has changed really, the Dulles brothers were proto-fascists and the western intelligence apparati still carry the legacy of that.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

It is especially ironic that the biggest proponents and advocates of expanded surveillance and police state powers are also those who cry loudest about the threats of "fascism". Nobody ever claims to be the fascist or the bad guy while they are accruing power and stripping you of your rights - it is always to protect against some (usually amorphous, exaggerated or invented) threat that requires it.