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(English is not my native language) I am very surprised by the very large amount of statism that seems to be present in USA in general and on hacker news in pa

by np422 13y ago

(English is not my native language) I am very surprised by the very large amount of statism that seems to be present in USA in general and on hacker news in particular. The high level of support for GWOT and all the side dishes like TSA, mass surveillance etc is very surprising. Each and one of all the things that have been done in the post 9/11 world may partially or completely be justifiable on it's own. But please, take a step back and paint a picture of where we have come from and were we are going if this trend continues. If I may help you... http://i.imgur.com/tfPY1y0.jpg http://i.imgur.com/tfPY1y0.jpg , here is a picture of the subway in New York in the 80's, dirty and full of graffiti - with drugs and violence present and by all means also music, food vendors and a lot of people going to their jobs. http://i.imgur.com/AxWRPgl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/AxWRPgl.jpg , here is the Moscow subway from the same time. Clean, spotless and no one behaves disorderly without the police arresting them quickly, police officers with none of the ridiculous limitations that the western police had in their code of conduct at that time. In which of those two subways would you prefer to ride to work every day? With every new alfabet law designed to protect us that passes through the parliaments, with every new government agency we move closer to a society that looks more like the Moscow subway station. Not to long ago we were prepared for thermonuclear war to defend our ways. Today we are giving up our open and free society with a cheer so we can stay safe. Step by step, piece by piece. Why can't the otherwise so intelligent and educated crowd of hacker news see that our society is heading in the direction of a police state? We are not there yet, but it is where we will end up if we don't turn around soon.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
> Why can't the otherwise so intelligent and educated crowd of hacker news see that our society is heading in the direction of a police state? We are not there yet, but it is where we will end up if we don't turn around soon. We don't have much of a choice unless we want to regress into a pre-state hunter gatherer society (aka, a non-society). People live closely together, people don't want to get shot by their neighbor. Advanced society requires the right set of laws to protect our safety and our liberty. And the USA is not alone in trying to balance these concerns: look at western Europe, Japan, Aus, NZ, ..., they all have the same issues to consider. There is also no "right" solution, its not black or white, but rather there are many tradeoffs to be made.
- crusso 13y ago
  We don't have much of a choice unless we want to regress into a pre-state hunter gatherer society Yikes, so we become a police state or we go roll things back 5000 years. Amazing. It's like the United States wasn't a world power and thriving before the New Deal.
  - panzagl 13y ago
    The United States wasn't a world power or thriving before the New Deal. It was in the middle of the Great Depression and a growing wave of isolationism. Of course, it was in pretty much the same place after the New Deal as well- World War II was required to take care of both.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    What part of rising population densities do you not get? We will become more urbanized, you just can't support 4 or 500 million Americans rurally. As we live more closely together, issues that would otherwise be benign or insignificant become significant. Couple that with globalization, and what are otherwise local problems have become global ones. From the libertarian perspective, we've been going downhill ever since the first city state kings appeared. People during the 30s were probably bitching about how it was much better in the 1870s, and so on.
- np422 13y ago
  Almost all of the things that I consider to be "excessive policing" and taking us in the wrong direction has happened since the the late 1980-ish, with a very strong acceleration after 9/11. I don't think reversing to a state comparable to the mid 1980'ies would put us in a hunter gatherer society.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
"and no one behaves disorderly without the police arresting them quickly" This isn't true, early 80-s is a peak of alchoholisation in USSR, there will be a lot of drunkards and police won't be able to do much. (USSR didn't have nearly as much police as modern Russia does)
svachalek 13y ago
There is a lot of growing evidence that most autoimmune disorders from allergies on up are caused by living in an environment that is too clean. I'm starting to think we are seeing the same effect when it comes to safety. Most of us now come into so little violence in our daily lives, we can't stop thinking about violence happening thousands of miles away to people we've never met. We can somehow ignore all the real problems all the "protection" is causing us in order to protect ourselves from problems we don't have, that no one we know has.
knowaveragejoe 13y ago
That picture of the Moscow subway is absolutely not from the same time period. It may have looked like that at the time, but the picture is from 2009: http://www.flickr.com/photos/waldenpond/4021913253/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/waldenpond/4021913253/
- np422 13y ago
  Please forgive for painting a picture with a broad brush. I wasn't really talking about subways, they only served as a metaphor for the society at large.

by np422 13y ago

seanmcdirmid 13y ago

> Why can't the otherwise so intelligent and educated crowd of hacker news see that our society is heading in the direction of a police state? We are not there yet, but it is where we will end up if we don't turn around soon. We don't have much of a choice unless we want to regress into a pre-state hunter gatherer society (aka, a non-society). People live closely together, people don't want to get shot by their neighbor. Advanced society requires the right set of laws to protect our safety and our liberty. And the USA is not alone in trying to balance these concerns: look at western Europe, Japan, Aus, NZ, ..., they all have the same issues to consider. There is also no "right" solution, its not black or white, but rather there are many tradeoffs to be made.

crusso 13y ago
We don't have much of a choice unless we want to regress into a pre-state hunter gatherer society Yikes, so we become a police state or we go roll things back 5000 years. Amazing. It's like the United States wasn't a world power and thriving before the New Deal.
- panzagl 13y ago
  The United States wasn't a world power or thriving before the New Deal. It was in the middle of the Great Depression and a growing wave of isolationism. Of course, it was in pretty much the same place after the New Deal as well- World War II was required to take care of both.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  What part of rising population densities do you not get? We will become more urbanized, you just can't support 4 or 500 million Americans rurally. As we live more closely together, issues that would otherwise be benign or insignificant become significant. Couple that with globalization, and what are otherwise local problems have become global ones. From the libertarian perspective, we've been going downhill ever since the first city state kings appeared. People during the 30s were probably bitching about how it was much better in the 1870s, and so on.
np422 13y ago
Almost all of the things that I consider to be "excessive policing" and taking us in the wrong direction has happened since the the late 1980-ish, with a very strong acceleration after 9/11. I don't think reversing to a state comparable to the mid 1980'ies would put us in a hunter gatherer society.

guard-of-terra 13y ago

"and no one behaves disorderly without the police arresting them quickly" This isn't true, early 80-s is a peak of alchoholisation in USSR, there will be a lot of drunkards and police won't be able to do much. (USSR didn't have nearly as much police as modern Russia does)

svachalek 13y ago

There is a lot of growing evidence that most autoimmune disorders from allergies on up are caused by living in an environment that is too clean. I'm starting to think we are seeing the same effect when it comes to safety. Most of us now come into so little violence in our daily lives, we can't stop thinking about violence happening thousands of miles away to people we've never met. We can somehow ignore all the real problems all the "protection" is causing us in order to protect ourselves from problems we don't have, that no one we know has.

knowaveragejoe 13y ago

That picture of the Moscow subway is absolutely not from the same time period. It may have looked like that at the time, but the picture is from 2009: http://www.flickr.com/photos/waldenpond/4021913253/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/waldenpond/4021913253/

np422 13y ago
Please forgive for painting a picture with a broad brush. I wasn't really talking about subways, they only served as a metaphor for the society at large.