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This is an asymmetric conflict. The factions who want this to pass have more resources, time and background influence and can keep pushing this until they get l

• frogperson 11mo ago
  We stop allowing the rich to become so rich. Billionares are not compatible with democracy or the greater good.
  • CamperBob2 11mo ago
    What happens when you get what you want, and rather than magically solving every problem confronting society, it doesn't solve anything at all, and in fact creates several more problems, as generally happens when such ideas are put into practice? What's plan B? Lower the threshold to a million dollars?
    • snek_case 11mo ago
      Also how do you avoid billionaires worldwide? Not everyone lives under your government. Even if you could, how do you know for a fact that some people don't secretly control hidden assets? Is Xi openly a billionaire? China is a "communist" country on paper. How does he hold so much power? The sad reality is that the world has a nonzero percentage of power-hungry narcissists. We need governments that are more democratic and robust. We all know that the current government processes are broken and corrupted.
    • iovrthoughtthis 11mo ago
      We iterate.
    • tock 11mo ago
      > as generally happens when such ideas are put into practice Is this true? Lots of countries with high living standards have high taxes. It doesn't need to solve every problem but it does help solve the problem of one unelected person holding too much power and influence. > What's plan B? Lower the threshold to a million dollars? 1B = 1000M. I think thats high enough. Don't see why you need to make it 1000x smaller to try and make a point.
      • CamperBob2 11mo ago
        It doesn't need to solve every problem but it does help solve the problem of one unelected person holding too much power and influence. It does? Really? What are they teaching kids in school these days? According to the books I studied, nominally-egalitarian leaders racked up an eight-digit body count in the 20th century alone.
        • tock 11mo ago
          > It does? Really? Yep. > nominally-egalitarian leaders racked up an eight-digit body count in the 20th century alone You don't believe in democracy and equal rights? Anyway billionaires love their 10 digits not 8.
          • CamperBob2 11mo ago
            You don't believe in democracy and equal rights? Not if it gets us a Trump, twice. What has democracy done for us lately? It appears that democracy just devolves into mindless yet profitable populism, given enough time and technology. Stupid voters are easier for ill-intentioned people to herd, using the modern tools we've built to do just that. Social media has made it possible for the first time to exploit a fatal bug in democracy that we always knew was there. AI will slam the coffin lid shut. I don't see a way back, personally, but confiscatory taxation of everybody that you think has too much money isn't a way forward. The people being taxed will demand a return on their investment, and now they know how to get it. The problem isn't the money, the problem is the power.
      • criley2 11mo ago
  • afarah1 11mo ago
    This seems to be more about political power and government overreach than money. The narrative seems to be focused solely on concentration of the later, lately.
    • dymk 11mo ago
      Money is political power. A billionaire can afford to lobby and “donate” as much as they want.
    • catlikesshrimp 11mo ago
      I expect economical and political power to get along well. You normally acquire both organically; except in some cases, suddently acquiring much of one will buy some of the other. TLDR: Billionaires hold political power.
    • eptcyka 11mo ago
      Billionaires inherently get political power. When they’re more socially adept than Musk, they can even have the power without having the plebs notice.
      • lazide 11mo ago
        Yup, going full autist in public is a good way to get the public angry at you and try to find a way to make your life more difficult.
        • hn_acc1 11mo ago
          You mean, going full asshole. Not all autists are assholes.
          • lazide 11mo ago
            The issue isn’t that he was being an asshole - plenty of politicians can be assholes and be cheered for it. He was being straightforward, direct, matter of fact, technical, and an asshole. You gotta lube up the plebes, or they get butthurt, and that is what is causing the issue.
  • impossiblefork 11mo ago
    It's too bad we can't withdraw our votes for a politician continuously, with the politician having to leave office if the vote changes enough. I'm not sure it can be solved without everybody writing down their vote, but this would be one way that would make pushing through unpopular policies, whether because of changing opinions, mismatches where politicians misrepresent their plans or corruption, much more difficult.
    • layer8 11mo ago
      That would just strengthen the incentives for continual populism and propaganda.
    • thewebguyd 11mo ago
      If not continuously, there needs to be mechanisms to recall a politician (or an entire government), and re-hold elections for both failing to govern and failing to represent the interests of the people over the interest of billionaires. To use the recent US shutdown as an example. Passing a budget is like one of the basic requirements of governing. If the current government cannot accomplish that, it should immediately dissolve and elections be held. Every single position in power at the time, gone, the whole thing gets re-elected because they have proven that the current group cannot adequately govern. The ability to recall needs to work similarly. Vote should be able to be initiated by the people at anytime, and a successful vote means the government dissolves and new elections are held. We could also have a "cooling off" period after a piece of legislation (like chat control) fails. It failed the first time, it should not be able to be immediately reintroduced whether in the same or a different form. There should be some sort of cooling off period where that piece of legislation (or its goals) cannot be reintroduced for x number of years.
      • thesuitonym 11mo ago
        These are good ideas, but they do have some pretty big sticking points. The ability to trigger a re-election has the same problems we're trying to avoid in the larger thread: If a bad actor (say a business) wants a politician out, they can just continually issue recall votes until they wear out the population and get lucky. Unfortunately, I think the only solution here is exactly what we have: Politicians have to be re-elected every couple of years. The cooling off period also has problems, because sometimes a piece of legislation is a good idea, but has a major flaw that causes people to vote against it. What happens when people want a law passed, but not in the form it's presented in?
  • hcurtiss 11mo ago
    It seems more likely to me this is being pressed by intelligence agencies than billionaires. Billionaires have secrets too.
    • bergfest 11mo ago
      But they have ways to evade the law. And my dystopian inner oracle tells me, that when the pervasive online identification will soon be reality, certain people's IDs will have a special "all access, no logs" status that will allow them stay under the radar.
• imglorp 11mo ago
  The States are learning the hard way that the disproportionate accumulation of wealth is an irresistible force which will eventually erode all checks and balances, corrupt all systems, and ultimately capture the entire government. We we were doing mostly okay with "constrained capitalism" but as soon as we let our guard down, money flooded into politics and that was the end of restraint.
  • samdoesnothing 11mo ago
    Chat Control isn't something being pushed in the States though, so your criticism just seems like you're taking a random shot at the USA rather than accepting the uncomfortable truth that the EU is becoming increasingly authoritarian.
    • imglorp 11mo ago
      No, I was directly responding to parent: > How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? It is a dynamic that is repeated in many areas. Relating our experience in the US, we planned for exactly this, it went okay for a while, until it didn't. The answer to parent is "do this but a little better" :-)
• HPsquared 11mo ago
  Constitutions are a pretty common way to say "no to this kind of thing".
  • yoz-y 11mo ago
    Indeed. It seems that the only way out is to elect a government that would have that on their program. Dubious that this will happen.
    • xxs 11mo ago
      Governments don't change constitutions pretty much anywhere. More also constitution changes are notoriously hard from requiring 75% of parliament votes, to 66% in two consecutive parliament assemblies (need to pass an election), and all versions in-between (or not having a codified constitution).
      • dspillett 11mo ago
        > Governments don't change constitutions pretty much anywhere. They do sometimes manage to just ignore parts that they don't like sometimes, at least temporarily, as the recent and continuing mess in the DPR-US illustrates.
  • egorfine 11mo ago
    Constitutions have a lot of "except in cases prescribed by the law" exceptions which makes it possible to pass into law all kinds of abuses.
• wartywhoa23 11mo ago
  > How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? Other than hoping for a large meteorite or the second coming to end this misery, or stirring up the bloodbath a la Nepal - then, by recognizing the power of large numbers of people doing little things, like sabotaging the system at the personal level. But that implies unity, and unity and mutual support have been deliberately annihilated in this society for too long. Thus, this outcome is even less probable than the first two.
  • soulofmischief 11mo ago
    I'm downvoting you because complaining against downvotes like this is against site guidelines. Your comment would have a better foundation if that part was omitted.
    • wartywhoa23 11mo ago
      Now that's some recursive self-fulfilling prophecy, my friend! But thanks for chiming in.
  • stackedinserter 11mo ago
    Agree completely. We're like sheep that are cluelessly watching other sheep being slaughtered.
  • enricotr 11mo ago
    This.
• the_mitsuhiko 11mo ago
  > How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? It is a dynamic that is repeated in many areas. A lot of society wants this. A lot of parents are asking for this.
  • soulofmischief 11mo ago
    That doesn't mean anything, because they're not necessarily educated on the topic, and yet are making decisions that affect everyone. When it's so cheap to enact mass propaganda, selective omission and manufactured intent, it becomes impossible to just say, "well, the people want it." Their decision making process is compromised by the same people pushing these policies through. Democracy is indeed broken, and we have to take that seriously if we're going to fix it.
  • dns_snek 11mo ago
    Please quantify "a lot". What percentage of the population wants all private communication between adults to be monitored and censored by a government agency? Can we put it to a vote - right after publicly discussing (debunking) all of the false beliefs that its proponents have?
    • the_mitsuhiko 11mo ago
      The question that is at the core is “police can wire tap calls but they cannot wire tap chats. Should this change?” The details are not all that important to people.
      • dns_snek 11mo ago
        Legal interception requires a court order, Chat control is mass surveillance. Trying to build support for mass surveillance by misrepresenting it as targeted tool with checks and balances is exactly the kind of bad faith discourse I'm talking about.
• alex1138 11mo ago
  This is true and yet we managed to kick SOPA to the curb (one of Aaron Swartz's finest hours)
  • echelon_musk 11mo ago
    That was more than a decade ago. Think how many normies have come online since then that have only ever used a smartphone. Sadly the average computer literacy of those times are gone.
    • tharne 11mo ago
      > Think how many normies have come online since then that have only ever used a smartphone. Sadly the average computer literacy of those times are gone. I remember a few years ago, being shocked to see that over 50% of applicants for a software engineering role applied directly from their smartphones. So it's not even just normies who see their phone as "the computer".
  • egorfine 11mo ago
    Did you notice that SOPA reappears every couple of years since then?
• whitehexagon 11mo ago
  >How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? Swiss style democracy with public referendums?
  • egorfine 11mo ago
    "Think of the children" buys a lot of votes of common people.
  • iso1631 11mo ago
    plebiscite -> populism -> bad outcomes People are not able to be experts in everything they are asked to vote on, thats why we delegate it, just like people delegate their healthcare, plumbing, flying to a holiday destination, growing food, etc. People en-mass are just as easy to manipulate as elected members, if not easier.
    • HeinzStuckeIt 11mo ago
      Can you point to examples of bad outcomes in Switzerland’s referendums? I mean unequivocal examples, of the sort that would convince everyone here that that model is undesirable as a whole.
      • latchup 11mo ago
        How about that time in 2020 the Swiss voted in favor of an immigration restriction proposal that was so fundamentally incompatible with existing EU treaties, the government was forced to bullshit their way out of implementing entirely because doing so would have basically ended Switzerland as a nation? This is the kinda thing that really cannot happen in a working system. The only reason the government is not sued into following through is because the courts have conspired with other branches to shut down any attempt at doing so. Real democratic. Generally speaking, people are stupid. Really REALLY f-cking stupid. Giving the average Joe this kind of unmoderated power in a modern world that almost entirely eludes his understanding is no different from handing him a loaded gun; eventually, someone will get hurt real bad. As someone living in Switzerland, the main reason things are as stable as they are is because: * Changing anything significant requires a referendum, which is a huge pain in the ass. So politicians just kinda avoid important changes that require referenda, finding other ways to enrich themselves and leaving society stagnating. This means that actually important changes come about very slowly or not at all. Read up on how long it took for women's suffrage to become universal – and the outright threats of internal military action the federal government resorted to... * Whether the Swiss like it or not, Switzerland is mostly a loud, spoilt economic annex of the EU. It will remain stable for as long as the EU is, and well off for as long as the EU wants to be seen as a peaceful and magnanimous partner in international relations. After all, "bullying" tiny and surrounded Switzerland into agreeing to anything – which the Swiss will cry about at any opportunity you give them – is a bad look. So yeah, Swiss direct democracy is not all it's made out to be, and really not all that great up close. Admirers remind me a lot of Weaboos, strangely shortsighted in their admiration of a system they know little about.
• stackedinserter 11mo ago
  > How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? By choosing "people-vs-individual-politician" fight over "people-vs-government-system". Like, literally, make politicians personally responsible for this bs.
• blibble 11mo ago
  > And once in place repealing it will be tremendously difficult. as in: not possible the EU parliament can't legislate to remove it, at least not without permission from the two organs (commission, council) that keep pushing this EU parliament is the only legislature in the world that needs permission to legislate
  • iso1631 11mo ago
    On paper the UK house of commons can pass a bill. In reality bills are driven by the executive. The same executive that (until brexit) drove the bills via appointing the EU commissioner and being the EU council. The reason that EU Parliament can't pass bills is because constituent governments don't want to lose power to parliament.
  • Muromec 11mo ago
    >EU parliament is the only legislature in the world that needs permission to legislate It makes sense, because EU law is mostly technical stuff that commission has to draft and all the national governments have to agree to. With the commission being elected by the parliament itself and vote of no confidence being a thing, it's not like the parliament doesn't have power -- the power is intentionally nerfed to not overreach where national governments don't want it to.
    • blibble 11mo ago
      > With the commission being elected by the parliament itself and vote of no confidence being a thing you only need 50%+1 to appoint the commission, but 66% to vote them out so practically impossible
• Lutzb 11mo ago
  The people that push this agenda reside on secrecy. We need to expose the people involved and let the press do their jobs.
  • okokwhatever 11mo ago
    Which press? The same that keeps this war in the shadows?
  • wartywhoa23 11mo ago
    Agree, but it's rather "expose the people involved and DON'T let their pocket press puppets do their jobs!"
  • nom 11mo ago
    It's just Ashton Kutcher trying to save our children.
• Kim_Bruning 11mo ago
  For one, we can try to get laws passed that point in the opposite direction: explicitly ban the things being proposed here as broadly as possible.
• SilverElfin 11mo ago
  I’ve seen this strategy many times in the US. For example, in blue states they will repeatedly propose the same gun control laws that restrict the rights of law abiding citizens and violate the constitution, which guarantees a right to own firearms. Each time such a law is proposed, people have to show up to hearings, submit comments, pressure legislators, protest, and all of that. Those laws may then be pulled back, but the same laws will get brought up every single legislative season, and citizens who have other responsibilities in life have to give up time and money repeatedly to fight for their constitutional rights. I’m sure there are other examples of such legal abuse of different political biases - I’m just using this as an example because there is such a long history of it. Eventually, legislators will pass whatever they want anyways. And then your recourse to regain rights is to go through an expensive years-long legal battle that ultimately requires the Supreme Court to take the case. This type of “attack” is a serious flaw in many modern democracies. I think the fix is to have personal consequences for legislators, judges, etc that make bad decisions that violate the constitutional rights or fundamental rights of citizens. The idea that people are immune from consequence just because they’re serving in an official capacity is insane. This shouldn’t be the case for anyone serving in political office or other public roles - as in, you shouldn’t get immunity whether you are a lawmaker or policeman or teacher or whatever else.
• marginalia_nu 11mo ago
  > How does society resolve this kind of abuse of the democratic process? You need a means for citizens to hold the powers that be accountable. Unfortunately, the EU is largely designed without such a mechanism, as its initial scope and ambition was much smaller than the superstate it is growing into it wasn't deemed necessary. Every branch except for the European Parliament risks consequences only if they fuck up so badly that the majority of EU citizens in their home countries (or in some cases, the majority of member states) deem their actions so reprehensible that they consider punishing the EU more important than electing their own national government, since it's effectively the same vote. This is technically still a means of accountability, but it's not really a threat in practice.