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Unless there's a law ensuring our freedoms.

layer8 1y ago
Laws can be changed, can be reinterpreted, there are no absolutes. What matters is who is in power, and how powers are kept in check. There is no finality to any of that. It’s a constant process of keeping things up, or failing to keep things up.
- shoubidouwah 1y ago
  This is actually one of my own fears for efficient organization at state level and above: - any new technology, any new opportunity either has checks and balances or gets exploited by smart optimizers with no regards for the commons or human flourishing - checks and balances are as you say a constant drain on public attention and resources: you need smart people doing the checking (finite resource), and receptive eyeballs (finite also) - it is thus an optimization problem. attack_surface - check_capacity = societal_explots I worry that the check_capacity term is constrained, but that the attack_surface keeps aexpanding with new technologies. At some point, we started playing whack a mole, frantically jumping from one check to another, and we're holding the fray stochastically. but at some point it's going to become extremely adversarial.
  - hn_acc1 1y ago
    I agree. There's an old saying: those who want to become president (leader of a country) should in no way be allowed to do so.
  - the8472 1y ago
    Well, where's the megaproject to raise the public's IQ by 50 so that basic game-theoretic checkings become child's play?
macintux 1y ago
Ask the U.S. lately just how binding those laws are.
- awesome_dude 1y ago
  Edward Snowden approves of this reminder :)
schoen 1y ago
It's difficult to entrench things. In the UK they have often said "one Parliament can't bind another Parliament", and in the U.S. it's also sometimes said "one Congress can't bind another Congress". The most obvious mechanism is a constitutional amendment, but in the U.S. the only amendment to be drafted and adopted in modern times is the 26th amendment (1971), 54 years ago. (The 27th amendment had a weird status where it was belatedly adopted with a 200-year delay.) It's hard to imagine many constitutional amendments actually being passed now because it's been challenging to find consensus on many things within U.S. politics lately. I don't know that the EU at a supranational level has any mechanism at all to ban future EU directives. Maybe they could decide to remove something from the list of areas of competence of the EU? But Chat Control is under the "Area of Freedom, Security and Justice" and I can't imagine the EU deciding that that should be abandoned as an area of Union competence. Edit: The international human rights treaties, at least in regulating law enforcement, have tended not to follow the idea that some kind of regulation or law enforcement power is completely off-limits, but just that they need procedural safeguards -- especially for surveillance and investigatory powers. In this case, Chat Control opponents (including me) would like it to be completely off-limits, but the human rights instruments arguments might more naturally go into "did they create enough surrounding rules and mechanisms about how it's used and how it's regulated?" rather than "can we just say governments just can't make this rule?".
m12k 1y ago
I mean, the right to privacy is already enshrined in the EU's human rights. The courts would likely strike Chat Control down if it were to pass. But I wish there was a way to prevent our politicians from even trying this shit.
- lxgr 1y ago
  Other things are enshrined in the EU human rights as well, many of them ultimately contradicting each other if you follow them to their logical conclusion. It's the task of parliaments, governments, and courts to reevaluate and resolve all these contradictions over and over again. It's tedious and takes a lot of resources, but that's the price for democracy.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  > I mean, the right to privacy is already enshrined in the EU's human rights. The constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (i.e. North Korea) famously guarantees freedom of expression as a fundamental right for the people. That hasn't stopped the government from trampling all over freedom of expression, though. The EU is of course nowhere near North Korea in terms of what is considered acceptable, but don't ever trust that the words in the constitution will be enough to keep the government from doing something.
lxgr 1y ago
Given that freedom can mean different things even to the same society at different times and in different circumstances, such a law would essentially have to be sentient.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 1y ago
Chat control very likely violates at least german law, if not EU law too already. As experts as well as the ministry of justice of the previous government in germany have pointed out time and time again. Yet still that was never enough for a clear and definitive "no". It is very likely that the people in favor of this would still try to push it through, or let that happen. They know that the legal battle afterwards to determine its unlawfulness would take years. And during that time it could already be put it place. And once the legal battle is over (and likely won) severe damage is done and they could still adapt the law or just offer companies to continue doing this "voluntarily". And personally I wouldn't count on Apple, Google, or Facebook to roll this back quickly in that case once they've put it into place.

Laws can be changed, can be reinterpreted, there are no absolutes. What matters is who is in power, and how powers are kept in check. There is no finality to any of that. It’s a constant process of keeping things up, or failing to keep things up.

shoubidouwah 1y ago
This is actually one of my own fears for efficient organization at state level and above: - any new technology, any new opportunity either has checks and balances or gets exploited by smart optimizers with no regards for the commons or human flourishing - checks and balances are as you say a constant drain on public attention and resources: you need smart people doing the checking (finite resource), and receptive eyeballs (finite also) - it is thus an optimization problem. attack_surface - check_capacity = societal_explots I worry that the check_capacity term is constrained, but that the attack_surface keeps aexpanding with new technologies. At some point, we started playing whack a mole, frantically jumping from one check to another, and we're holding the fray stochastically. but at some point it's going to become extremely adversarial.
- hn_acc1 1y ago
  I agree. There's an old saying: those who want to become president (leader of a country) should in no way be allowed to do so.
- the8472 1y ago
  Well, where's the megaproject to raise the public's IQ by 50 so that basic game-theoretic checkings become child's play?

macintux 1y ago

Ask the U.S. lately just how binding those laws are.

awesome_dude 1y ago
Edward Snowden approves of this reminder :)

schoen 1y ago

It's difficult to entrench things. In the UK they have often said "one Parliament can't bind another Parliament", and in the U.S. it's also sometimes said "one Congress can't bind another Congress". The most obvious mechanism is a constitutional amendment, but in the U.S. the only amendment to be drafted and adopted in modern times is the 26th amendment (1971), 54 years ago. (The 27th amendment had a weird status where it was belatedly adopted with a 200-year delay.) It's hard to imagine many constitutional amendments actually being passed now because it's been challenging to find consensus on many things within U.S. politics lately. I don't know that the EU at a supranational level has any mechanism at all to ban future EU directives. Maybe they could decide to remove something from the list of areas of competence of the EU? But Chat Control is under the "Area of Freedom, Security and Justice" and I can't imagine the EU deciding that that should be abandoned as an area of Union competence. Edit: The international human rights treaties, at least in regulating law enforcement, have tended not to follow the idea that some kind of regulation or law enforcement power is completely off-limits, but just that they need procedural safeguards -- especially for surveillance and investigatory powers. In this case, Chat Control opponents (including me) would like it to be completely off-limits, but the human rights instruments arguments might more naturally go into "did they create enough surrounding rules and mechanisms about how it's used and how it's regulated?" rather than "can we just say governments just can't make this rule?".

m12k 1y ago

I mean, the right to privacy is already enshrined in the EU's human rights. The courts would likely strike Chat Control down if it were to pass. But I wish there was a way to prevent our politicians from even trying this shit.

lxgr 1y ago
Other things are enshrined in the EU human rights as well, many of them ultimately contradicting each other if you follow them to their logical conclusion. It's the task of parliaments, governments, and courts to reevaluate and resolve all these contradictions over and over again. It's tedious and takes a lot of resources, but that's the price for democracy.
bigstrat2003 1y ago
> I mean, the right to privacy is already enshrined in the EU's human rights. The constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (i.e. North Korea) famously guarantees freedom of expression as a fundamental right for the people. That hasn't stopped the government from trampling all over freedom of expression, though. The EU is of course nowhere near North Korea in terms of what is considered acceptable, but don't ever trust that the words in the constitution will be enough to keep the government from doing something.

lxgr 1y ago

Given that freedom can mean different things even to the same society at different times and in different circumstances, such a law would essentially have to be sentient.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 1y ago

Chat control very likely violates at least german law, if not EU law too already. As experts as well as the ministry of justice of the previous government in germany have pointed out time and time again. Yet still that was never enough for a clear and definitive "no". It is very likely that the people in favor of this would still try to push it through, or let that happen. They know that the legal battle afterwards to determine its unlawfulness would take years. And during that time it could already be put it place. And once the legal battle is over (and likely won) severe damage is done and they could still adapt the law or just offer companies to continue doing this "voluntarily". And personally I wouldn't count on Apple, Google, or Facebook to roll this back quickly in that case once they've put it into place.