3 ms·

I, for one, am not apathethic, but still feel completely powerless. Politicians do not represent me, the people have stopped protesting because it's been outlaw

by sph 3y ago

I, for one, am not apathethic, but still feel completely powerless. Politicians do not represent me, the people have stopped protesting because it's been outlawed and it's completely useless. But I am still looking to spend my energy in decentralised, fully-encrypted networks, I'm still banging on about the sham that is our democratic Western world, and researching modern technological ways to protest against the status quo (agorism, etc.) It's small but honest work, yet the vast majority of people, here included, think working with the system and the thieves is better than accepting we've been lied to for decades. But the point is, we are powerless against any decision Westminster does. We are all waiting to vote the other party next year, and do you truly believe they will step back from this bill? After all, they too care about the children, and it is us that want to harbour pedophiles. (I am thoroughly disgusted by how major newspapers have framed this law as a win, or relegated it to a footnote.)

kmlx 3y ago
> and do you truly believe they will step back from this bill? step back? they're criticising the government for not doing more/watering it down. if anything the next government will strengthen these rules, not water them down.
- sph 3y ago
  Anything for children safety, right? I have said years ago that all our rights, in all Western nations, will be stripped with that excuse, because it's so damn easy to convince the laymen that it's for the good of the children, and paint protestors are pedophile apologists. Child safety laws are the Trojan horse of surveillance.
  - jjgreen 3y ago
    Child safety is what is pushed in the press, the act itself is filled with "content harmful to children and adults", see section 46 for the details. Nice to know that Bravermen and the rest of them are protecting us from harm.
    - dewclin 3y ago
      > Child safety is what is pushed in the press For example, in yesterday's Guardian [1]. Meta introducing encryption "will let child abusers ‘hide in the dark’". [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/20/meta-encryption-plan-will-let-child-abusers-hide-in-the-dark-says-uk-campaign https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/20/meta-encr...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hilbert42 3y ago
    General apathy about this law is just another symptom of a failing democracy. It's not only this online safety law, there's been apathy over all laws and regulation about security and safety—they've all sailed through into law over the last 30 or so years without so much as a murmur from the GP. The only opposition comes from background noise—such as likes of us who post to columns on HN and we're easily discarded. Lawmakers and politicians know if they want a law passed for certain all they they have to do is to mention those 's' words in context. As some have said, people are apathetic about protesting over this issue—and I'd add many other issues as well—as it does no good. I'd essentially agree, protesting is damn hard and thankless work especially so given that it's effectively banned in most anglophone countries. Seems to me little or nothing can be done until the political climate changes, when or if that will be is anyone's guess. One issue that may tip the balance after backdoors are added to encryption is when politicians are caught out by their own law—as, no doubt, sooner or later they will be. Imagine the impact of a political scandal like the Profumo Affair after having been exposed by a backdoor hack. Only then will politicians realize what they've actually done—so too will the GP. For those not old enough to realize how huge the Profumo scandal was here's the Wiki (I remember it being headline news for days and I wasn't even in the UK at the time): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profumo_affair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profumo_affair
    - kwhitefoot 3y ago
      > Imagine the impact of a political scandal like the Profumo Affair I can imagine it. It would be declared to be the personal failing of the persons concerned and the political ship would sail on without so much as a shudder.
      - hilbert42 3y ago
        Perhaps so, but back then it brought down the government, whether it would do so today in an era of poorer ethics, highly-tuned government spin and when both government bureaucrats and politicians are well immunized against public opinion is a moot point. In ways I agree with your assessment as I've been around long enough to witness those changes. I can only add that unless we citizens insist on changes that actually benefit us and not the Establishment/Ruling Elite then we'll end up imprisoned in a totalitarian dictatorship. At some point the current trend/movement will have to stop or that's where we'll end up by default.
  - ballenf 3y ago
    Beginning 40 years ago, the same efforts were made under the guise of fighting the drug war. Then 15-20 years ago, it became clear that that boogeyman wasn't scary enough, so the messaging slowly shifted to terrorism and then children. Those two together seem to have been the key to shifting public opinion. The terrorism threats started as racist fear mongering before shifting to highlighting threats from internal nationalist groups. This combination gives every political leaning something to fear and someone to demonize.
lynx23 3y ago
Indeed, people are starting to understand that democracy is just another type of control, and most of its promises are actual lies. If you critically review what the parties you voted for have actually done, it is quite likely that you end up without a party to vote after a number of voting iterations. For me, it took roughly 25 years of being able to vote until I realized I dont want to do it anymore.
southwesterly 3y ago
This sounds interesting. What do I need to know / learn to be part of this?
- sph 3y ago
  Decentralised network? Good question, there's a lot of things that are not very practical just yet. Name dropping off the top of my head: IPFS, Veilid, Dat, hypercore, maybe even Urbit (yes I know). Maybe simply not putting our entire lives on the internet. Counter-economics? Get infatuated with anarchism, the free-market variant, mutualism, read up on agorism (on my reading list is "How to Opt-Out of the Technocratic State" by Derrick Broze), understand that cryptocurrencies, with all their problems, could be the only tool to take down a capitalist system from the inside the more our rights are stripped away. People, and the market itself, do not care about laws or prohibition. For the first time in history, we have a way to exchange value that does not respect borders or physical constraints. Even mainstream economists such as Milton Friedman believed such an invention could radically reshape the world. [1] That's an open discussion, nothing I can go over in a forum comment, and there is no panacea. I'm simply exploring the option that it might be possible to have a fairer world, while collectively we have decided this is the best we can do, and point and laugh at whoever tries to dispute that. We have lost the idealism of the thinkers of the last two centuries, those that fought tooth and nail for civil and worker rights. Now all you get is a pin saying "I voted!" Feel free to email me to discuss any of these topics. 1: https://youtu.be/leqjwiQidlk?si=vSjt743jJ-yjsPfI https://youtu.be/leqjwiQidlk?si=vSjt743jJ-yjsPfI
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - southwesterly 3y ago
    Thanks for your detailed reply. I shall use this as a jumping off point for further explorations.
munksbeer 3y ago
I agree. I'm not a "rage against the machine" type of person, I just generally go with the flow. But over the years I've developed an actual underlying seething rage at how removed politicians are from us. They operate in a way that they're almost entirely unaccountable and that we are subordinate to them, rather than the actual fact that they are our employees, they work for us, we pay them to do our bidding. But the structures have developed in such a way that this is now reversed. The system has set itself up such that we only ever get variations of the same people who do whatever it takes to keep protecting the system that protects them. If you look at a party like AfD in Europe, I have no love at all for right wing populism, and I don't support AfD themselves, but I actually do support some of what their manifesto stands for. Far more accountability to people and much more direct democracy, more referendums and so on.

by sph 3y ago

kmlx 3y ago

> and do you truly believe they will step back from this bill? step back? they're criticising the government for not doing more/watering it down. if anything the next government will strengthen these rules, not water them down.

sph 3y ago
Anything for children safety, right? I have said years ago that all our rights, in all Western nations, will be stripped with that excuse, because it's so damn easy to convince the laymen that it's for the good of the children, and paint protestors are pedophile apologists. Child safety laws are the Trojan horse of surveillance.
- jjgreen 3y ago
  Child safety is what is pushed in the press, the act itself is filled with "content harmful to children and adults", see section 46 for the details. Nice to know that Bravermen and the rest of them are protecting us from harm.
  - dewclin 3y ago
    > Child safety is what is pushed in the press For example, in yesterday's Guardian [1]. Meta introducing encryption "will let child abusers ‘hide in the dark’". [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/20/meta-encryption-plan-will-let-child-abusers-hide-in-the-dark-says-uk-campaign https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/20/meta-encr...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hilbert42 3y ago
  General apathy about this law is just another symptom of a failing democracy. It's not only this online safety law, there's been apathy over all laws and regulation about security and safety—they've all sailed through into law over the last 30 or so years without so much as a murmur from the GP. The only opposition comes from background noise—such as likes of us who post to columns on HN and we're easily discarded. Lawmakers and politicians know if they want a law passed for certain all they they have to do is to mention those 's' words in context. As some have said, people are apathetic about protesting over this issue—and I'd add many other issues as well—as it does no good. I'd essentially agree, protesting is damn hard and thankless work especially so given that it's effectively banned in most anglophone countries. Seems to me little or nothing can be done until the political climate changes, when or if that will be is anyone's guess. One issue that may tip the balance after backdoors are added to encryption is when politicians are caught out by their own law—as, no doubt, sooner or later they will be. Imagine the impact of a political scandal like the Profumo Affair after having been exposed by a backdoor hack. Only then will politicians realize what they've actually done—so too will the GP. For those not old enough to realize how huge the Profumo scandal was here's the Wiki (I remember it being headline news for days and I wasn't even in the UK at the time): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profumo_affair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profumo_affair
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    > Imagine the impact of a political scandal like the Profumo Affair I can imagine it. It would be declared to be the personal failing of the persons concerned and the political ship would sail on without so much as a shudder.
    - hilbert42 3y ago
      Perhaps so, but back then it brought down the government, whether it would do so today in an era of poorer ethics, highly-tuned government spin and when both government bureaucrats and politicians are well immunized against public opinion is a moot point. In ways I agree with your assessment as I've been around long enough to witness those changes. I can only add that unless we citizens insist on changes that actually benefit us and not the Establishment/Ruling Elite then we'll end up imprisoned in a totalitarian dictatorship. At some point the current trend/movement will have to stop or that's where we'll end up by default.
- ballenf 3y ago
  Beginning 40 years ago, the same efforts were made under the guise of fighting the drug war. Then 15-20 years ago, it became clear that that boogeyman wasn't scary enough, so the messaging slowly shifted to terrorism and then children. Those two together seem to have been the key to shifting public opinion. The terrorism threats started as racist fear mongering before shifting to highlighting threats from internal nationalist groups. This combination gives every political leaning something to fear and someone to demonize.

lynx23 3y ago

Indeed, people are starting to understand that democracy is just another type of control, and most of its promises are actual lies. If you critically review what the parties you voted for have actually done, it is quite likely that you end up without a party to vote after a number of voting iterations. For me, it took roughly 25 years of being able to vote until I realized I dont want to do it anymore.

southwesterly 3y ago

This sounds interesting. What do I need to know / learn to be part of this?

sph 3y ago
Decentralised network? Good question, there's a lot of things that are not very practical just yet. Name dropping off the top of my head: IPFS, Veilid, Dat, hypercore, maybe even Urbit (yes I know). Maybe simply not putting our entire lives on the internet. Counter-economics? Get infatuated with anarchism, the free-market variant, mutualism, read up on agorism (on my reading list is "How to Opt-Out of the Technocratic State" by Derrick Broze), understand that cryptocurrencies, with all their problems, could be the only tool to take down a capitalist system from the inside the more our rights are stripped away. People, and the market itself, do not care about laws or prohibition. For the first time in history, we have a way to exchange value that does not respect borders or physical constraints. Even mainstream economists such as Milton Friedman believed such an invention could radically reshape the world. [1] That's an open discussion, nothing I can go over in a forum comment, and there is no panacea. I'm simply exploring the option that it might be possible to have a fairer world, while collectively we have decided this is the best we can do, and point and laugh at whoever tries to dispute that. We have lost the idealism of the thinkers of the last two centuries, those that fought tooth and nail for civil and worker rights. Now all you get is a pin saying "I voted!" Feel free to email me to discuss any of these topics. 1: https://youtu.be/leqjwiQidlk?si=vSjt743jJ-yjsPfI https://youtu.be/leqjwiQidlk?si=vSjt743jJ-yjsPfI
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- southwesterly 3y ago
  Thanks for your detailed reply. I shall use this as a jumping off point for further explorations.

munksbeer 3y ago

I agree. I'm not a "rage against the machine" type of person, I just generally go with the flow. But over the years I've developed an actual underlying seething rage at how removed politicians are from us. They operate in a way that they're almost entirely unaccountable and that we are subordinate to them, rather than the actual fact that they are our employees, they work for us, we pay them to do our bidding. But the structures have developed in such a way that this is now reversed. The system has set itself up such that we only ever get variations of the same people who do whatever it takes to keep protecting the system that protects them. If you look at a party like AfD in Europe, I have no love at all for right wing populism, and I don't support AfD themselves, but I actually do support some of what their manifesto stands for. Far more accountability to people and much more direct democracy, more referendums and so on.