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Look, I've been visiting Britain as a tourist for years(since more than 10 years ago) - mostly to visit my friends who live there. Each time i come there it's

Look, I've been visiting Britain as a tourist for years(since more than 10 years ago) - mostly to visit my friends who live there. Each time i come there it's worse than previous trip, and your whole infrastructure feels oppressive. Constant reminders to be vigilant because something bad might happen(train and metro jingles come to mind) - implying a terrorist attack. Constant reminders that you're watched by cameras, while crime itself is rampant. I come from Eastern Europe, yet visiting UK genuinely feels like visiting oppressive police state. I am aware about your history(first The Troubles, then terrorist scare of 2000s, now domestic problems) but this is NOT the normal state for modern western country. Most likely perspective of Brits who have been living through this since ww2 is heavily culturally skewed, rather than then outside observer's one.

nrawe 1y ago
As a Brit, I'd agree that it's not ideal. However, the characterisation of terrorist scare in the 2000's, is somewhat off. Over the course of the last two decades, there have been numerous terrorist attacks, most notably 7/9, which have led to increased vigilance and securitisation. So while travelling in Hungary, Croatia, or Italy over the last few years I've noted the difference, I also appreciate that each country is dealing with its own internal context that can be difficult to grasp from the outside. Anyway, thank you for visiting our fair shores :)
- zimpenfish 1y ago
  > Over the course of the last two decades, there have been numerous terrorist attacks And don't forget the 3-4 decades before that where terrorist attacks were just a fact of life in the UK.
  - closewith 1y ago
    > And don't forget the 3-4 decades before that where terrorist attacks were just a fact of life in the UK. Most of which were performed by the British Government through police, military, and paramilitary forces against its own citizens.
- hopelite 1y ago
  What people like you seem to miss or maybe simply lack the sophistication (if I may say so) for, is understanding the nature of the ruling system and how far it will go to achieve its aims, which are also hidden from you. The ruling class are obviously a rather small group, so they inherently and by necessity rely on extreme manipulation, gaslighting, lying, deception, etc. to keep everyone off balance and not looking at them for causes or even accountability, let alone doing anything about them. It is why those who are extremely adept at manipulation and abuse are the ones who keep the ruling class in power in all places in the West, where the ruling class defers to them for that skill of manipulation and abuse. It seems impossible to you that a government and its actors would e.g., not only allow, but even facilitate something like terrorist attacks specifically for the very purpose of making incremental, ratcheting moves towards an authoritarian system more palatable… for your safety of course. It’s really not any different than how all abusers will incrementally test and press with various cycles of pressure and relief on their target of subjugation and abuse. All the signs of manipulation, subjugation, and abuse are there in basically all western countries. Have you ever heard of Biderman’s chart of coercion[1]? [1] https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/departmentsubject/socialwork/documents/eshe/Bidermanschartofcoercion.pdf https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/departmentsubject...
  - nrawe 1y ago
    Hi hopelite. I typed out a decently detailed response to your message, but decided to cut it short. I think we probably have a profoundly different viewpoint and set of experiences which would be too much to try and reconcile here. I'll say this: history, certainly British history, shows that bad actors are real and that power is simultaneously unavoidable, useful, and deeply dangerous, particularly for those who seek it out. I'm certainly not oblivious to that or "lack the sophistication" to see that the world is complex. However, for all its ills, I'd rather live here, now, than anywhere else at any other time in history and I think there's better things ahead if we can stop see those who have different viewpoints as inferior, or as enemies, and find some common ground. I'd certainly rather be here than in Gaza, Iran, Russia, Belarus, Afganistan, China, etc. Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but given the same outrage flew during the Snoopers Charter debacle and we are all still here and talking, maybe "they" are not out to get us all.
gadders 1y ago
>> then terrorist scare of 2000s The Ariana Grande concert bombing was only five years ago. You can see a list of those in the 2020's here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain#2020s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in...
- hopelite 1y ago
  Yes, and it was effectively facilitated by the British government through its actions and policies. The whole highest order issue in the whole west is that there is not only effectively zero responsibility, zero accountability, but also zero consequences. The easiest to understand example of this may be how corporations can commit all manner of what are effectively crimes (i.e., it is what you would be charged with) and they not only do not have any effective consequences, the consequences usually instill the lesson that it is extremely profitable to commit the crimes and just pay the meaningless fine as a cost of business. In most cases corporations even just account for it as an expense and add it to the cost and price they charge. So, for example, all the EU fines they so concisely levied over the last years against American tech companies like Microsoft and Google; they had been charging the various European governments and companies for a reserve to pay such expected fines. It always baffles me that people do not understand the basic premise that organizations of people are not their own entities, especially when you don’t punish the individuals that make them up in the same way that individuals that are not in corporations are. Is quite literally a kind of new stratified system. Joe if ACME Corp can commit financial crimes and get away with it, but you can’t. He can even commit homicide through negligence with impunity, while you are thrown in jail for decades. It really should be the other way around, if a corporation commits crimes, if you did or should have known about the crimes, you are collectively also held criminally liable just like a getaway driver of a bank robbery is. Somehow we have not evolved past the point that the most powerful and responsible are the least accountable and have the least consequences for their actions.
  - gadders 1y ago
    The rest of your text may have a bit of a point, but: >>effectively facilitated by the British government through its actions and policies. Nothing justifies blowing up teenage girls you deluded psychopath.

nrawe 1y ago

As a Brit, I'd agree that it's not ideal. However, the characterisation of terrorist scare in the 2000's, is somewhat off. Over the course of the last two decades, there have been numerous terrorist attacks, most notably 7/9, which have led to increased vigilance and securitisation. So while travelling in Hungary, Croatia, or Italy over the last few years I've noted the difference, I also appreciate that each country is dealing with its own internal context that can be difficult to grasp from the outside. Anyway, thank you for visiting our fair shores :)

zimpenfish 1y ago
> Over the course of the last two decades, there have been numerous terrorist attacks And don't forget the 3-4 decades before that where terrorist attacks were just a fact of life in the UK.
- closewith 1y ago
  > And don't forget the 3-4 decades before that where terrorist attacks were just a fact of life in the UK. Most of which were performed by the British Government through police, military, and paramilitary forces against its own citizens.
hopelite 1y ago
What people like you seem to miss or maybe simply lack the sophistication (if I may say so) for, is understanding the nature of the ruling system and how far it will go to achieve its aims, which are also hidden from you. The ruling class are obviously a rather small group, so they inherently and by necessity rely on extreme manipulation, gaslighting, lying, deception, etc. to keep everyone off balance and not looking at them for causes or even accountability, let alone doing anything about them. It is why those who are extremely adept at manipulation and abuse are the ones who keep the ruling class in power in all places in the West, where the ruling class defers to them for that skill of manipulation and abuse. It seems impossible to you that a government and its actors would e.g., not only allow, but even facilitate something like terrorist attacks specifically for the very purpose of making incremental, ratcheting moves towards an authoritarian system more palatable… for your safety of course. It’s really not any different than how all abusers will incrementally test and press with various cycles of pressure and relief on their target of subjugation and abuse. All the signs of manipulation, subjugation, and abuse are there in basically all western countries. Have you ever heard of Biderman’s chart of coercion[1]? [1] https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/departmentsubject/socialwork/documents/eshe/Bidermanschartofcoercion.pdf https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/departmentsubject...
- nrawe 1y ago
  Hi hopelite. I typed out a decently detailed response to your message, but decided to cut it short. I think we probably have a profoundly different viewpoint and set of experiences which would be too much to try and reconcile here. I'll say this: history, certainly British history, shows that bad actors are real and that power is simultaneously unavoidable, useful, and deeply dangerous, particularly for those who seek it out. I'm certainly not oblivious to that or "lack the sophistication" to see that the world is complex. However, for all its ills, I'd rather live here, now, than anywhere else at any other time in history and I think there's better things ahead if we can stop see those who have different viewpoints as inferior, or as enemies, and find some common ground. I'd certainly rather be here than in Gaza, Iran, Russia, Belarus, Afganistan, China, etc. Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but given the same outrage flew during the Snoopers Charter debacle and we are all still here and talking, maybe "they" are not out to get us all.

gadders 1y ago

>> then terrorist scare of 2000s The Ariana Grande concert bombing was only five years ago. You can see a list of those in the 2020's here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain#2020s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in...

hopelite 1y ago
Yes, and it was effectively facilitated by the British government through its actions and policies. The whole highest order issue in the whole west is that there is not only effectively zero responsibility, zero accountability, but also zero consequences. The easiest to understand example of this may be how corporations can commit all manner of what are effectively crimes (i.e., it is what you would be charged with) and they not only do not have any effective consequences, the consequences usually instill the lesson that it is extremely profitable to commit the crimes and just pay the meaningless fine as a cost of business. In most cases corporations even just account for it as an expense and add it to the cost and price they charge. So, for example, all the EU fines they so concisely levied over the last years against American tech companies like Microsoft and Google; they had been charging the various European governments and companies for a reserve to pay such expected fines. It always baffles me that people do not understand the basic premise that organizations of people are not their own entities, especially when you don’t punish the individuals that make them up in the same way that individuals that are not in corporations are. Is quite literally a kind of new stratified system. Joe if ACME Corp can commit financial crimes and get away with it, but you can’t. He can even commit homicide through negligence with impunity, while you are thrown in jail for decades. It really should be the other way around, if a corporation commits crimes, if you did or should have known about the crimes, you are collectively also held criminally liable just like a getaway driver of a bank robbery is. Somehow we have not evolved past the point that the most powerful and responsible are the least accountable and have the least consequences for their actions.
- gadders 1y ago
  The rest of your text may have a bit of a point, but: >>effectively facilitated by the British government through its actions and policies. Nothing justifies blowing up teenage girls you deluded psychopath.