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The issue is that American media/discourse paints a very distorted view of what life under authoritarian rule is like. The truth is in many countries, unless yo
by Bukhmanizer 1y ago
The issue is that American media/discourse paints a very distorted view of what life under authoritarian rule is like. The truth is in many countries, unless you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble, day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west. But people don’t want to hear that, because we want to feel better than them. Like we wouldn’t tolerate that kind of life.
Of course the most frustrating part about that is as the US and other western countries start sliding into authoritarianism, people deny it because they don’t feel like it’s authoritarian.
Edit: To clarify, I don’t think life is exactly the same - just that the consequences of authoritarianism are much more insidious than they’re portrayed.
- graemep 1y agoNot entirely true. People living authoritarian worry about what they say, they self-censor out of fear, they defer to those in power (even at a local level), they accept a hierarchy of power rather than rights. I do not entirely disagree without, but lack of freedom does intrude into day to day life to some extent.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- yachad 1y agoEven if you live in a western country you do all of that anyway. Self-censor at work and online so I don’t get fired or banned from w/e. Accept elected officials whose policies don’t match up with popular opinion and accept standard employment hierarchy.
- Rover222 1y agoThat's very different than worrying about going to jail for life or getting disappeared.
- ryandv 1y ago[flagged]
- hax0ron3 1y agoI'm against extrajudicial deportations to El Salvador, but those people are not being deported for their political opinions. As for trans/LGBTQ+ genocide, it does not exist in the West.
- ryandv 1y ago[flagged]
- philipallstar 1y agoThis seems identical to saying that convincing someone with anorexia that they aren't overweight is "social death", and "social death" is (somehow) genocide. I.e. it's nonsense.
- ethersteeds 1y ago[flagged]
- VerminOctopus1 1y agoI live in the free and morally righteous West and I self censor all the time. Every single day. My beliefs would have me ostracized from communities and fired from my job.
- graemep 1y ago> My beliefs would have me ostracized from communities and fired from my job. but not landed you in prison or disappeared, I take it?
- syndeo 1y agoTrue, but at least in prison you're (usually) fed… which may NOT be the case if you're fired from your job, put on a list, and blocked from the industry.
- trenchpilgrim 1y ago> True, but at least in prison you're (usually) fed… Not adequately or safely. https://impactjustice.org/new-report-provides-first-ever-national-examination-of-food-in-u-s-prisons/ https://impactjustice.org/new-report-provides-first-ever-nat...
- account42 1y agoStill better than the in the average US school.
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoThe linked report describes a case study of a prison where rat droppings were falling from the ceiling into the prison kitchen. It also states 75% of surveyed prisoners reported being served spoiled or rotting food. Was your school worse than that?
- account42 1y agoThey might, if not now then possibly in the future. See e.g. people in the UK getting arrested for tweets.
- int_19h 1y agoIt depends a lot on what kind of authoritarian society it is. It's not a binary, and many are "soft authoritarian" meaning that citizens don't have any effective control over their government, but it doesn't actively try to suppress even minute dissent DPRK-style. In most of those countries, people don't actually worry that much about what they say because it doesn't matter at their level. It only matters if you're a public person saying things in a very public way.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- blitzar 1y ago> worry about what they say, they self-censor out of fear, they defer to those in power Sounds a lot like having a job.
- deadfoxygrandpa 1y agoits like what the old east german people said after the wall fell. i forget the exact phrase but its something like: "before, i could criticize my boss but i couldn't criticize the government. now i can criticize the government but i can't criticize my boss"
- graemep 1y agoI agree that is a problem, particular with the concentration of power in small industries and the cultural homogenisation of people in power. I recall in 2016 British employers who said they would fire any employees they discovered voted for Brexit - of course the only way they could find out is if people said how the voted but that is a free speech issue. I think we need legal protections for things like free speech that we have traditionally had against governments to apply to employers and service providers. I think legislation that prevents various forms of discrimination proves it is achievable.
- yieldcrv 1y agoWe’ve self censored regarding the state narrative on Israel/Palestine our entire lives in the west Just because the censorship is outsourced to the private sector, mostly, doesn’t make the day to day any different when you rely on support of the private sector, alongside discretionary support from the state Visa holders are experiencing detainment for this specific thing, this cycle. And in other western democracies anyone can be fined and imprisoned for it as well Wishful thinking that there is imperviousness to disagreeing with the state narrative in the west The reality is that it’s not always on the mind 100% of the time and you learn to appreciate the day to day life under Eastern and Western authoritarian systems
- sunaookami 1y agoIn Germany you literally get your house raided if you critize a politician online. A journalist got a suspended sentence because he posted a pic of then-interior minister holding a sign that was edited to read "I hate freedom of speech".
- graemep 1y agoLots of bad things in the west, certainly, but there is a huge difference between a suspended sentence and getting murdered: https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/sri-lanka-failing-to-probe-journalist-murders-press-group-idUSCOL168351/ https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/sri-lanka-failing-to... Picking on not the worst country in the world, but one I know (and was living in at the time this was at its worst). Things have changed there since, thankfully.
- corimaith 1y agoWell, day to day life is similar until it isn't, then you realize you have no options. Your life is nothing more than bubbles in the pond.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dijit 1y agoThats exactly the parents point. You only realise you can’t do something when you come into contact with trying to do it. Otherwise you live your life blissfully unaware of how free you arent. Its like how you feel that driving is safer than flying, despite driving being the most dangerous thing most people do… you only realise how dangerous it is when its too late.
- UncleSlacky 1y agoAs Rosa Luxemburg put it: > Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.
- platevoltage 1y agoI think this is a big reason why Americans (and other "Westerners") tend to say "Look at them, they're Communist!!!", instead of "Look at them, They're Authoritarian!!!". If you call it what it actually is, too many Americans might actually connect the dots.
- mattnewton 1y ago> unless you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble, day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west Okay but that is exactly why I would prefer a western liberal government. It is better and that is ideal is worth criticizing authoritarians for, and fighting to keep in the west.
- danny_codes 1y agoI mean I live in the US and people are getting persecuted right now for being a minority, being politically active, or being in legal trouble. So not seeing a huge difference between liberal democracies and authoritarians.
- freeone3000 1y agoPerhaps the US is no longer a liberal democracy?
- decremental 1y ago[dead]
- Jensson 1y agoWas US ever a liberal democracy? People had much less liberties in the 1950s than today, with people getting arrested for their political views instead of just deported. not to mention segregation and such. They even put lawyers defending these politicians in prison for defending them... The constitution doesn't seem to matter since the government apparently don't have to care about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
- watersb 1y ago> Was US ever a liberal democracy? People had much less liberties in the 1950s than today, Your question deserves an answer. The US was a liberal (post-Enlightenment) democracy. Senator McCarthy was eventually kicked out of Congress for his witch hunt. President Nixon was confronted by Republican members of Congress, and he resigned after this meeting rather than face impeachment. So when I was a kid, lawmakers largely upheld the norms, the rule of law. Many of those same lawmakers might have today been considered racist or misogynist or might have failed some other standard of 21st century society. As a liberal democracy, the United States has never been perfect, but it's always been worth improving.
- OfficeChad 1y ago[dead]
- Rover222 1y agoThis is kind of a pointless statement when you make it that broadly. Are you talking about life in North Korea or in China? And do you think American media really distorts the "other" side more than Chinese or Russian media distorts what life in the west is like?
- deadfoxygrandpa 1y ago> And do you think American media really distorts the "other" side more than Chinese or Russian media distorts what life in the west is like? having lived for a long time in both china and america: yes. chinese people are given a much more accurate view of life in america than americans are given an accurate view of life in china thats why there was that meme going around earlier this year when tik tok people joined rednote that said americans were shocked to learn their media was lying about how bad chinese people had it, while chinese people were shocked to learn their media was telling the truth about how bad americans had it
- unnamed76ri 1y agoA quarter of their population doesn’t even have Internet access.
- deadfoxygrandpa 1y agothat's simply false. according to cnnic, china has 1.267 billion monthly active users of mobile internet services. that's 89.9% of the population, and about 10% of china is over 70 years old which is very likely a big percentage of the people who arent using the internet
- pastor_williams 1y ago“Reminder: On Chinese social media platforms, please do not mention sensitive topics such as politics, religion and drugs!!!” "Some Americans reported having their content blocked or accounts suspended for material deemed sensitive by RedNote, as content moderators control what the Chinese audience can see. A search on RedNote for Xi Jinping, China’s leader, comes up blank." https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2025/0129/American-Chinese-RedNote-exchange https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2025/0129/Ameri... It seems like the Chinese government works pretty hard to make sure its own citizens don't understand how bad things are in China. Maybe they fail at that but it isn't for lack of trying. "It's hilarious to me that one side is sharing that Chinese people are convincing Americans that they've been fed propaganda about China, and the other side is saying that no, it's the Americans telling the Chinese that THEY are being fed all the propaganda! This is hilarious and dumb, but not as crazy as what happened on the Tiananmen Square in 1989!" https://imgur.com/gallery/idea-that-bunch-of-americans-flooding-rednote-is-exposing-chinese-workforce-to-concepts-of-weekends-unionization-is-extremely-funny-to-me-AzyQyCI https://imgur.com/gallery/idea-that-bunch-of-americans-flood... For all its faults I think I trust America's freedom of speech to make information available better. We should be diligent in protecting it as a principle because although the government is somewhat constrained by the first amendment, others are not.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mensetmanusman 1y agoThis is a naive view. Life under the Soviet Union was horrible. Talk to nearly everyone who lived in fear that their neighbors would rat on them. That affects everyone.
- lanfeust6 1y agoThey're probably referring to modern day countries that remain controlled by Communist parties officially. However, these went through a decades long process of privatisation to get where they are today, and there is no guarantee they won't backpeddle.
- frontfor 1y agoThe horrible life in Soviet Union was due to horrible governmental policies, which are not unique to authoritarian governments. Liberal governments have their fair share of bad policies.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoI wonder why people voted for those bad Soviet policies.
- ahartmetz 1y agoYes. I've been to China, daily life for regular people is mostly fine (bad work-life balance notwithstanding, as in other Asian countries). Nothing like the old stories from Russia (written by Russians, mind you) or even the relative material comfort but heavy-handed state control like in the GDR. Daily life can also be fine in fascism if you don't belong to any "unpopular" groups and don't care about any. Until the customary war starts, that is...
- bogdan 1y ago> Until the customary war starts It's good to know liberal democratic progressive countries such like the US would never start a war.
- computerthings 1y ago[dead]
- paulryanrogers 1y agoPerhaps the larger point is that war conditions are worse for everyone in autocratic regimes. Regardless of how common (or rare) wars are for societies of any given kind.
- wetpaws 1y ago[dead]
- dyauspitr 1y agoYou’re being dismissive about the minority part. I guess it varies from country to country but several minority groups combined can actually be the majority like in Iraq, Rwanda, Eastern Europe, SE Asia etc.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago> The truth is in many countries, unless you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble, day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west. At a very superficial level, sure -- people get up, go to work, go out to eat, go to the movies, fall in love, get married, pay their bills, get sick, die, etc. -- like humans in the West. But this is all within the bounds of what the government decided you should adhere to. If you step outside of those bounds the consequences can be severe and without any legal recourse. Because authoritarian regimes are a law to themselves, rather than applying the law, they're highly susceptible to corruption. Whether you get in trouble or not depends on who you know (in China it's called guanxi). I lived in China for 6 years, ran a business there; I can tell you the system runs on guanxi. Access to information is highly restricted. All public media and social networks are censored and/or self-censored. There is no freedom of expression on anything that is "sensitive". This is _not_ limited to "minorities, politically active or those in legal trouble". Yes, people have learned to walk the line carefully. It is more relaxed than the Mao days or the USSR (I lived there too) where you literally had someone on every floor of a building whose job was to report on what everyone else was doing. But it _looks_ more relaxed than it is. If you've visited China, or even stayed there a few months, or studied there for a year as an exchange student, you won't notice it. But believe me it's there. The educated class know it but they've either a) accepted it ("mei banfa"), or b) have emigrated or have made contingency plans for their kids, or c) are carefully subversive.
- trod1234 1y agoThis is quite an ignorant take with rose-tinted glasses towards autocratic statism. The truth of the matter that you neglect is that in many countries the minorities, allowed political activity, and many other aspects change without proper notice or disclosure following a strategy that originated from Mao China where the government keeps people guessing. Namely, the Anaconda in the Chandelier paradigm. This is done not only because of issues within government, but also for the benefit of the ruling class to repress the general population using techniques based in torture to promote automaton-like behaviors from induced stress. The brainwashed masses will always deny reality in such an environment. When you have subversive elements that have broken the guard rails and caustically destroyed resilient systems making them brittle; bringing things to crisis and then attempting to silently seize power, and they fail to actually do it, you get the natural rise of authoritarianism. This is what happened with Hitler, and in many respects it was the Communists of the time, as well as the post-WW1 reparations, and economics that paved the way for what came after. Its insidious yes, because people don't recognize or realize the reason the dominoes fall, and the consequences are just a cascading series of generally but not specifically predictable events in history. It certainly also makes matters worse when you have runaway money-printing to further cause issue. If the cycle was to be stopped before the consequences, it should have been stopped by the cohorts that gradually and subversively put it into action in the first place, but they wanted to seize power instead, have their cake and eat it too. The people of such a group epitomize many of the deadly sins, and they have willfully blinded themselves to it.
- mr_toad 1y agoAuthoritarian governments wield their economy as a tool for political power, which affects everyone living there.
- specproc 1y agoYeah, this is it. I've lived under governments of a variety of different stripes in some very different parts of the world, I've lived in war zones. Day to day life has been more or less the same across all of them. You go shopping, go to work, see friends, have a few beers or maybe a smoke, eat out, go to weddings, birthdays and funerals, play sports. People run businesses, post memes. The way non-OECD, "non-democratic" countries are portrayed in the West gives us a very false sense of superiority. We have the same problems: gilded elites, crushing poverty, persecuted minorities, illusory participation in governance, terrifying police, rampant corruption. I'm not saying everywhere is identical, there's a spectrum. There's just more similarities between countries than differences, in my experience. The things that often distinguish are more cultural and geographical than political.
- slightwinder 1y ago> I'm not saying everywhere is identical, there's a spectrum. That's the point. You have the same type of problems everywhere, but not the same quantity and quality. But people seem to not care or understand those differences, and weaponize the concepts, instead of looking at the outcome.
- whoisthemachine 1y ago> But people seem to not care or understand those differences, and weaponize the concepts, instead of looking at the outcome. This is politics.
- mihaic 1y ago[flagged]
- metalman 1y agoright. and if we wanted to give ANY society a geometric representation it would have a point at the very top that would represent the most powerfull person, and would then widen out to represent the average and then taper down to another singal point, that would represent the single person in that society whoes life was composed of nothing but horror not of thier own fault and who will die with no chance of any help or redress. We can name those living at the top, but pretend that the wieght of society is not carried by a succesion of nameless inocents , comunist, socialist, religious and other societies give lip service to this, but all fall short of declaring a policy that no one will ever be ignored, forgotten and abandoned, but each and everyone of these systems has an elaborote way of doing reputation management or credit score, merit, titles,etc to signal virtue/worth, that can be gamed, so it is. And here we are, and my time/attention must now, be diverted back to the game, lest I loose more than the few points of carma it costs me to speak out here.
- rationably 1y ago> some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble That's... Sufficiently concerning, don't you think?
- Bukhmanizer 1y agoYes thats my point. The average person may feel that they are completely free, because they live their lives within the boundaries of what the ruling party wants.
- Justsignedup 1y agoThe problem of authoritarianism is the preparedness paradox. They are less prepared for problems. And so suddenly problems happen all the time. But when there are no problems... Things are going well for the average person.
- whatevaa 1y agoUntil an asshole comes to power and decides that genociding half of population is ok. Happens al the time.
- idiomat9000 1y agoNo, it is not. It seems that way if you are a (s)expat in the honeymoonphase. Then you learn the language and look into the abyss. In it families who can not trust one another, hierarchies of incompetence with bribes upon bribes, no legal recourse to anything, a caste system of actual misery and no perspective for that to ever change. And that is peace time. In wartime the ethnic majority progroms and kicks everyone else out of the country.
- A_D_E_P_T 1y agoLiterally none (0%) of this applies to China. Burma, maybe. But even that's a stretch. You're exaggerating for dramatic or comedic effect, that much is certain.
- ForHackernews 1y agoSpoken like a Han with a good hukou https://archive.is/lRne7 https://archive.is/lRne7
- NoGravitas 1y agoBut have you considered that China Bad?
- LunaSea 1y ago> Literally none (0%) of this applies to China. Isn't corruption the reason given by Xi Jinping for removing from their position multiple high ranking CCP members, generals, regional representatives and billionaires?
- pavlov 1y ago[flagged]
- lurk2 1y ago> Trust in the justice system has severely degraded. Among whom? By how much? Since when? > Trump's deportation program. The people being deported are not lawful residents. It is not even remotely comparable to the situation the GP is describing.
- stickfigure 1y ago> The truth is in many countries...day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west. That's true right up until your infallible dear leader invades your neighboring country, fails, and rapidly starts ratcheting down social controls in a desperate attempt to preserve political stability. I don't think Russians would describe day-to-day life as "mostly similar to the west" anymore. China could be next.
- the_af 1y agoTo be fair, the job of infallible dear leader in a major Western democracy is very prone to getting involved in wars, with bad repercussions for the people involved in all sides... (and destabilizing the world in the process). While some people in that country oppose these war adventures, it's difficult to voice because said country has a secular religion of worshipping its own armed forces, and speaking contrary to this can have anyone ostracized. I'm not talking about Russia, China or North Korea, though of course it can also fit some of those countries.
- tokioyoyo 1y agoUnfortunately, day-to-day life is mostly similar to the west in Russia. Other than some unfortunate people getting conscripted, it’s the same as usual.
- NuclearPM 1y agoRussians support Putin on average.
- stickfigure 1y agoNobody knows this.
- duxup 1y agoDay to day is of course generally the same, until the day it isn't the same, or you want to deal with the government in some way. Or god forbid you want to have some say in policy ... are concerned about opportunities. Let alone the fact that how authoritarian varies wildly, just like how free ... but they're not the same.
- KolibriFly 1y agoAuthoritarianism rarely feels like a switch flipping — it's more like water slowly boiling
- BiteCode_dev 1y agoBasically, authoritarian rule shows its nature with the swiftness you are punished if you try to go against the flow. Usually if things go wrong, if you want to change things against the grain. Free system don't make those easy either, but you have way more layers of protections, safety nets, and way less death sentences looming over your head. Money and who you know matter less the freer a society is. However, this is an abstract concept that people can't grasp unless you lived it. That's the problem with building a society: people can't be arsed to do anything unless they felt the pain. They can't picture problems they didn't live through. This is why you'll see people telling you the UAE is the best things since sliced bread, only to come back years and years later, once they actually paid the price. They had a car accident with the wrong person. They tried to do business by got pwned by corruption. They got sick because of pollution. A family member got in jail for BS reasons. All that can happen in a free society, it's just less likely, and the consequence are less dire. Very hard to make people get how important it is. Anything that requires nuances and projection is near impossible to communicate to the mass. That's why we have tribes and symbols. This is the only way to sell a project to big groups of humans, because then you substitute the complicated concept with a simple us vs them or good vs bad narrative. Of course, once you do that, people think even less, and you get extremism rising. This is why, IMO, free systems never last. Our last 80 years run was a statistical anomaly. We got very lucky.
- carlosjobim 1y agoIn non-democratic nations: You are allowed to do almost anything you please, except for speaking up against political power or in any way challenge them. In democratic nations: You aren't allowed to do anything, but you are free to speak up against political power and challenge them as much as you please. Or that's how it used to be.
- phkahler 1y ago>> The issue is that American media/discourse paints a very distorted view of what life under authoritarian rule is like. The truth is in many countries, unless you’re some kind of minority, politically active, or in legal trouble, day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west. Short term maybe. But there are reasons people want(ed) to move to the USA, and I don't mean refugees. A lot of college educated well-to-do folks have always wanted to come here. Also, the innovation, economic strength, and military strength of the USA will all suffer if the level of corruption increases - because corruption is a burden on the systems that produce those results. You can't get rid of it, but you can't let it run rampant either.
- nanliu 1y agoThe desire to come and immigrate to the US has greatly diminished. This use to be a easy decision for foreign students to stay in the US for work opportunities. Nowadays, a US degree isn't considered prestigious outside of a few elite schools and the cost has completely spiraled out of control. I've talked to numerous colleagues who abandoned waiting for a green card because it's no longer a clear cut decision. Opportunities and quality of life in other countries have either caught up or surpassed the US in certain areas. This would of been unthinkable 10-20 years ago.
- lurk2 1y ago[flagged]
- tokioyoyo 1y agoThey’re right about 1 and 3, but not 2. Life has gotten much better in a good chunk of the world, that the opportunity loss for not moving to US is getting smaller. You can easily see it by immigration application numbers by country.
- lurk2 1y ago> You can easily see it by immigration application numbers by country. Where are you getting this information? Visa issuance more than doubled between 2020 and 2024. https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/AnnualReports/FY2024AnnualReport/Table%20I.pdf https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Annual...
- dominicrose 1y agoDay-to-day life depends on your social class. I wouldn't want to be in China earning minimum wage. There are also crazy countries like Iran and North Korea.
- M95D 1y agoI wouldn't want to be anywhere earning minimum wage for that location.
- the_af 1y agoEarning minimum wage is a very bad situation in many democratic countries, the US included. There's nothing special to China in this regard. There's very little real data on day to day life in NK, mostly fantasizing by the West, but what do you think is day to day life in Iran? I doubt it's crazy. It's probably a lot like in many other countries. Iran is not a hell-hole.
- dotnet00 1y agoIt's been a little over a decade since I lived there, and yes, it was not all that crazy. As a foreigner I was generally expected to stay away from big protests when they flared up, and internet connectivity sucked (though this was also a time when the world was less dependent on near-constant internet access). Otherwise it was pretty much like any other "middle-tier" country. I was a teenager back then, so it was especially nice in certain ways: Tehran was pretty safe, so I had a lot of freedom to get around unsupervised that I later did not have in some other "more free" places.
- janpmz 1y agoIn this case, we are less likely to notice our own countries becoming authoritarian. Because we will compare it to a version that is exaggerated.
- JTbane 1y agoIn China, if you say anything bad about the CCP they will strap you to a chair in a struggle session and force you to admit you were wrong. That alone is terrifying.
- prewett 1y agoI don't think you've lived in one of the countries you're talking about. I lived in Beijing for a couple years, and early on I wanted visit Tian'anmen Square and tourist. I wanted to see what there was to do, how to get there, etc., but any search term (in English, anyway) was blocked. So the CCP's inability to accept their past actions and their insistence on making up a false reality made a legitimate activity difficult. Last time I went you had to stand in long lines because they required you to show your ID card (passport, in my case). I worked for a tech company, and none of us could do our jobs without a VPN, because half of all tech blogs got blocked. (Partly because a lot of them blocked on fonts.google.com, which was blocked because google.com was blocked; probably those would time out if you waited long enough.) I couldn't read more than about three paragraphs of the People's Daily without wanting to throw it across the room because the fake reality and shoulds/oughts were so blatant. Maybe it's more subtle in Chinese, but I doubt it. Fortunately I was not there for the whole Covid disaster. You could argue that the CCP is totalitarian, which is authoritarianism++. The problem is that since technology can be used for totalitarian ends, it will be. Putin is authoritarian (certainly by no means Communist), yet reports I hear from Russia make it sound much like China. There's the forced conscription bit for his war against Ukraine, too. Erdogan seems a little better, but his economics-denying policies caused rather large inflation, and life seems to be definitely impacted in other ways, censorship being one of them. Well, how about just old-school kings? That's Trump, or MBS. Trump's changeability is a feature of kings: once you know where to look, you see it lots of places. Grimm's fairy tales have a number of cases of the king looking favorably on someone and then being influenced against them by someone else; it's practically standard if a king shows up. I saw Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" last week, and it revolves around a king who is having a great time with a visiting king. He wants the other king to stay a while, and has his wife persuade him. But the king thinks he is too easily persuaded, decides this must be because he is sleeping with the queen, tries to murder his friend, and tries the queen for treason. It's a bit sitcom-y, but sitcoms don't work if the premise isn't believable. You see it in Reynard the Fox, where the king is quite easily swayed by smooth words. Darius in the book of Daniel gets manipulated by his courtiers into passing a law against Daniel. Trump does political "fire and motion" (see Spolsky's old blog), so he appears unusually changeable, but random decisions are just a part of kings. So no, life is not just mostly the same as we have now in the US. What we have in the US is a historical aberration. Unfortunately, we have the authoritarian Left (which denies being authoritarian by redefining words), and we have a foolish authoritarian Right. If the rest of us don't get our act together we are likely to slide back to historical norms.
- asats 1y ago>day-to-day life is mostly similar to life in the west The "happy path" is, the major differences start when you have any kind of a problem, then not having any functional institutions makes the experience _very_ different from the west.
- NoGravitas 1y agoHow different your experience is when diverging from the "happy path" in the West depends a lot on your wealth and your skin color.
- throwaway7783 1y agoThis isn't even remotely true. Life is nothing like western countries in most parts of the world, authoritarian or not.There is a reason for such levels of immigration to western countries.
- I-M-S 1y agoIn a lot of cases that reason is that the West has pillaged and/or coup-ed those countries in the past, and doesn't care if it scorches and/or submerges them underwater in the future.
- throwaway7783 1y agoI agree. My country was plundered for hundreds of years. And some now have the gall to say these invaders brought progress to a backward country. However, that is orthogonal to the point being discussed
- pjmlp 1y agoAs first generation out of Salazar's dictorship, what I see is current generations completely ignoring what was taught to them during the last decades. I can surely tell, the memories of my parents and family members that had to live under the regime isn't really that those were better days, unless one was a collaborator. Try to do some public comment that can be misused to mean some kind of bad opinion on the regime, and off you go, out of the map. Like how Amnesty International came to be, https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/amnesty-international-founded https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/amnesty-inte...
- michaelmrose 1y agoOnly 1 in 3 are straight white Christians in the US. Fascism only doesn't have an effect in the early stages in the sense that loading a gun has little effect on those not frightened by it. Actually using it is going to become impossible to ignore.
- SilverElfin 1y agoOkay. But you still can’t have repercussions from the government for your speech in America. On this issue Europe is definitely backsliding - for example, see UK police showing up at doorsteps for social media posts). But countries like China and Turkey take it MUCH further. You can be jailed for years for political speech or wrongthink. That does change day to day life. You can’t think or act freely. At best you can live a lie and stay quiet.
- ux266478 1y ago> But you still can’t have repercussions from the government for your speech in America. You absolutely can. The obvious example most frequently talked about is that there are plenty of things you can say, which if the wrong person hears them or they trigger automated alarms, it will get you an unfriendly visit by people flashing badges. They might be there to give you a threatening talking-to, or they might be there to arrest you full-stop. The less obvious example is that even if you don't cross any lines to trigger a direct response like that, it's recorded all the same. It will shape future interactions with law enforcement agencies. You will be flagged as a person of interest, as a hostile actor, etc. Legal speech can very easily make you suspicious and law enforcement will treat you accordingly before they've ever met you. It's not a recipe for a good outcome when the people with badges start off thinking you're likely to pull a gun on them. At times, it's been far worse than this. I'll direct you to COINTELPRO, or any of the other mryiad of historical instances where the US government has protected its interests by going after domestic elements it sees as subversive. > On this issue Europe is definitely backsliding Europe never had free speech to the degree that America did. In many countries, it's unlawful to speak ill of royal figureheads for example. > for example, see UK police showing up at doorsteps for social media posts This absolutely happens in America, as I mention above. You might say it's to a different degree, but the end result is the same. > You can be jailed for years for political speech or wrongthink. All it takes is for you and your ideology to be labelled as extremist and terrorist, which is a wholly arbitrary line to draw.
- ruszki 1y agoAs an outside observer, it absolute looks like that the American government punish people for their speech. Of course, they say something else, like we just kidnap you from the street, or we just revoke your grant, or we just force your university to kick you out. Or simply flat out ban your free speech, like teachers’ one in schools. And even if they do it illegally, and they give you the opportunity to use your rights, lawsuit themselves can be still damaging. Also, there were several news in the past decades about cases when police was even at the doorsteps of perpetrators before their mass shooting because of their social media posts (but more times, Americans were disappointed that police didn’t prevent the shooting even when there were incriminating social media posts). The problem is not social media posts, it never was. It’s their content. And also, it’s not just social media posts most of the time when the police come to your doorsteps even here in Europe. But that cannot be made to sensationalist headlines. It’s still worse the law situation in Europe, but an adversarial government can find ways to circumvent even the better laws. And from the outside, it looks like that this would happen exactly in the US.
- ihagen 1y agoThe main problem with living under authoritarian rule is 1. the absenсe of control for the way where the country is going. 2. the value of human life is approaching zero. Today your life is pretty decent (unless you're some kind of minority (c)), but tomorrow you find yourself with a mobilization order because your country decides to start a war. And nobody cares about your surviving.
- breakyerself 1y agoIt's mostly the same for the dominant socio-political group until a moron or psychopath gets into power and then you're all fucked.