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I blame a lack of historical knowledge combined with the fact that we mostly exist in harmony with our governments. First, few of us have taken the time to rea
by droopyEyelids 14y ago
I blame a lack of historical knowledge combined with the fact that we mostly exist in harmony with our governments.
First, few of us have taken the time to read accounts of how the political groups of history have used information against people. So we don't know to do addition when we have one and one.
Combine that with the fact that most of us aren't engaged in any sort of activity that incumbent power would like to disrupt. You get a false sense of security, because no one is presently leveraging any of the information they have against you. That could change the moment you had an exciting or disruptive political idea, but for now 'the system' is happy with you keeping your head down and working.
If anyone wants to read a sad tale of how groups of men can use information to hurt each other, check out Out of the Night by Jan Valtin
- anigbrowl 14y agoFirst, few of us have taken the time to read accounts of how the political groups of history have used information against people. I question that assumption. Even people with a superficial knowledge of history are familiar with the existence of the Gestapo and the KGB; even if they're hazy on specific methods, they get the concept of a police state just fine. Just because they may not consider the US to be a police or surveillance state to the same degree that you would does not mean that the idea is alien to them.
- hp50g 14y agoThey are aware of the concept but are too apathetic to act on it before it happens.
- JVIDEL 14y agoThat guy Jan supported plain anti-democratic dictatorships and the use of espionage and murder until surprise surprise! he fell out of favor and had to suffer the same ordeals he made others go through, hardly what could happen to the average guy living in a democracy. Put simply, he played with fired and got burned.
- droopyEyelids 14y agoI'm not saying to empathize with Jan, instead empathize with all the moderate social democrats the Communists and Nazis fucked over, murdered, and destroyed.
- JVIDEL 14y agoYeah you could say the same about the Nazis you know? not all of them were burning people 24/7 in the camps........but most of them did agree with it, same with communists in the west looking the other way while stalin and mao killed millions.