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As a resident of said countries, I'd propose that you should not trust Scandinavian governments either. The officials are not that corrupt but the politicians a
by ptaipale 14y ago
As a resident of said countries, I'd propose that you should not trust Scandinavian governments either. The officials are not that corrupt but the politicians are politicians. Moreover, in these countries there's a widespread belief that the state can do no wrong, that restricting freedom of speech is okay if done for a good cause, that censoring the net is a good thing for the government to do. Even the rule of law can simply be dismissed (it started with preventing child pornography, of course).
- fulafel 14y agoI think the point was that scandinavian countries are less bad than the alternatives. There are restrictions on freedom of speech in just about every country btw.
- ptaipale 14y agoSure there are. But we could apply Dilbert's management theory to this and split governments to types on axis good/evil (G/E) and on axis competent/incompetent (C/E). The worst thing you can have is an evil competent (EC) government. Therefore I'd say it's more important to have an I government than a G government, because it is easier for a government to go from G to E than it is to go from I to C.
- fulafel 14y agoSo which government(s) have a more favourable equation of agenda+capabilities towards net freedom? Taken literally, the most "I" countries would be bad bets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state#2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state#2012 Remember that it was US pressure that drove the recent unpleaseantness in .se and TPB were able to succesfully defend themselves there for many years - and most countries currently willing to stare down threats of US trade sanctions aren't exactly havens of privacy and net freedom. The pro net freedom countries currently correlate with G&C governments, it seems.
- ptaipale 14y agoYes, extreme incompetence is not good. BTW I haven't seen much evidence about US pressure regarding unpleasantness in .se (I assume you mean Assange). Anyway, I sort of like the incompetence level in Greece. They haven't been able to set up a land registry, so that the government could collect property taxes. That sounds promising from the point of view of setting up a privacy-respecting net service. There is a mostly reliable supply of electricity and communications, and it's not a very bad a place to live.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]