Comment by Chance-Device
15 days ago
This is the way that the UK has passed laws for a while now, make them so broad that they potentially criminalise everyone, then selectively prosecute. This is a very obvious setup for future totalitarianism. I’m surprised that the British public stands for it, but I guess they must not care.
People here are very passive and used to being pulled around. It's insane how far people's rights have eroded already. No right to protest, no right for privacy - what's next on the chopping block?
The impression I have is that (some) people in the UK protest but are ignored, vilified, or punished for it. And then nothing changes.
The last time I wrote to my MP, I got a form letter back basically saying "Don't bother contacting us, only The Party matters". (I mean, those weren't the words at all; but having had lame-but-bespoke messages back from them in the past, this was a noticeable and disheartening change).
No right to own money. That will be taken away when cash is phased out.
No right to be mean on social media, too.
Who defines what is mean? Oh yes, some unelected bureaucrat
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Future totalitarianism? Is the UK's government restricted in anyway right now? What line have they not crossed yet?
As far as I know they haven’t started murdering political opponents yet, so that’s something. But I take your point, the UK is today not a serious country for a variety of reasons.
Are there really any political opponents any more? Al the parties that matter are either explicitly in favour of these ideas or at least behave as though they are.
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This is fuelled by notion that law enforcement is incompetent and doesn't work.
If law enforcement won't catch criminal even if you had them all the details, evidence, witnesses, then average person thinks there laws are dead anyway as there is no one competent to enforce them.
> I’m surprised that the British public stands for it, but I guess they must not care.
I can educate people but it always comes back to "I've not got anything to hide". What are we suppose to do, go out to the streets and protest? Start a petition, right to a PM who has no idea what encryption is?
Mentioning Linux to my family opens a can of worms. We are naive to think protesting actually changes something, it's old fashion. Those with power just don't care so unless people attack with their wallets nothing will come from.
It's not 1995 so unless you have £ for lobbying surrounded by people in suites there is nothing public of any nation can do against anyone in power.
They have this power precisely because you have given up. Government power is derived from the consent of the goverened. Collective action does work and always will, but it needs to be coordinated. If enough people in the UK stopped going to work, they could affect change pretty quickly I reckon.
> They have this power precisely because you have given up.
I've not given up, I just don't follow outdated methods of means to take back power. I use my wallet, I don't shop at amazon.
Stop being a consumer and supporting a ego who supports the wars, causes your protesting against. That would be the next greatest thing but we are too convenienced by these services.
Contradiction much? One where we would rather go and protest, head home and then go and support companies that do the opposite of what your fighting for. That is why protests are flawed. I'd rather be out on a Saturday picking up litter (like I do) than be at a protest and that's not just because I don't support the cause.
I just see the it as a old-fashioned method that doesn't apply to today’s new powers. You can't fight for power and then oppositely go and do the opposite nor can you fight when the power is to corrupt. Level the playing field is all you can do.
Innovate, create and throw it back in their faces and don't sell out when the FANG bites you with your cheque.
> Collective action does work and always will, but it needs to be coordinated.
Of course, but who wants to coordinate it. Why not yourself, adding to who wants to be put on a hit list? I get executed and then what, It all goes back to how it was. The Boeing whistleblowers ended up dead, any recourse from that?
Don’t you think maybe this attitude is part of the problem?
Not at all. We should be banding together to make the next best thing but people are lazy, but who can blame them? Easier to just press the big red NetFlix button and then order food on GrubEats.
I'm being realistic, in the capitalist world we live in unless you have assets, power your worth nothing.
You have no voice, no power, ever. Where's the futuristic project that saves the world? I'm sure the next JavaScript library posted on the front page of HN will be it.
I hate to be "woke" and break it to you that in this reality that your just a schmuck to an entity who's paying you to ensure that your powering their machine with bare benefits; if your lucky. Many homeless folk out there.
Heck, if you've got a job after this ML/AI fluff, you must be good at it. I'm 35 and above cynical at this point, I see no hope in this world from both people and those who run the show.
Take it as you wish, I wouldn't hold it against mother earth imploding herself because of the vile the homo sapiens race has become. Anyway, back to our designated cubicles within the walled gardens we opted for.
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I'm not surprised at all
Brit here. Yeah from my experience people don't care. Hardly anyone gets prosecuted and those who do have often done something bad.
Most day to day complaints are they don't prosecute enough, often related to the bastard that snatched your phone. We have approximately zero people sitting in jail for failing to decrypt and similar.
>This is a very obvious setup for future totalitarianism.
No it really isn't. If they are planning a totalitarian takeover they are being very sneaky about it. There is a strong anti totalitarianism tradition here including elections since 1265, writing books like 1984 and bombing nazis.
Brit here.
> Hardly anyone gets prosecuted and those who do have often done something bad.
Perhaps often they've done something bad, but sometimes they haven't, that's the point. Obviously this is wrong and you shouldn't be so passive about it.
> If they are planning a totalitarian takeover they are being very sneaky about it. There is a strong anti totalitarianism tradition here including elections since 1265, writing books like 1984 and bombing nazis.
I'd argue people in the UK today like to adopt the label of being anti-authoritarian and anti-totalitarian, but in reality most people here, including our politicians, quite like authoritarianism.
For example, people here often argue things like "I support free speech, but obviously insulting someone for their identity is wrong". So in the UK we apparently have free speech and I can apparently criticise religious people, but at the same time just this week someone in the UK was arrested for burning a bible.
You see this hypocrisy constantly in the UK... "I'm not an authoritarian, but smoking is bad". "I'm not an authoritarian, but you can't be saying that". "I'm not an authoritarian, but if you're worried about mass surveillance you probably have something to hide". "I"m not authoritarian, but you can't just let people have private data on an encrypted device which the government can't access".
The UK is very authoritarian these days, but unlike other parts of the world people here deny it while arguing in favour of more of it.
There's nothing necessarily wrong with being authoritarian and wanting the government to have more control either. Clearly many countries find this type of government appealing, but lets at least be honest about it. We don't want kids on social media. We don't want people smoking. We don't want people being about to call people names on Twitter. We don't want people burning religious texts. We don't want people being free from government surveillance.
It is true, the British do tend to submit to authority. Questioning authority is considered poor taste, bad manners.
This way is more serene and orderly than anarchy. But I suppose it bodes poorly for the individual liberties. On balance, there is value in aligning and orchestrating society. Too much individualism can turn into radicalisation through identity politics, as we’ve seen in the US in the last decade.
A large degree of societal cohesion is not all bad, in the context of the alternative. It’s not all good either, but it has served the British thus far. It’s serving some other countries like China, too, one can’t deny it.
Unfortunately, I suspect this is true. The British public does have an authoritarian bent, with a side helping of “rules are for other people, this couldn’t possibly impact me at some point”.
Today, maybe, even so it probably depends on who you ask.
The thing about giving your rights away is that it’s very difficult to get them back, and you never know who “they” are going to be in the future.
I'm not sure "giving your rights away" quite sums up the process. It's more as a Brit, and probably most of us, weren't even aware this bill was happening - the government passes many pages of dull legislation - but if it proves a pain you can always vote for whoever offers to repeal it. I suspect the encryption law vs Apple is going to result in the government backing down to some extent.
We did rebel over ID cards. Passed in 2006, repealed in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006
Plenty of people have been jailed in the uk for not providing pins or passwords.
I've tried to explain the issues with the UK government's stance on digital privacy to my friends. The responses I get:
* I have nothing to hide, I don't care
* Oh come on, our government doesn't care what I'm up to
* The UK will never be totalitarian. I'm not scared of the government
* The UK civil service is incompetent and could never pull this off (fair point, although I worry about the safety of my personal data in the hands of such people)
Let's not forget we had a hard-left (Corbyn) socialist regime come close to power, whose cabinet members called for "direct action" against political opponents, just a few years ago.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/watch-john-mcdonnell-s-c...
I don't think people realise how quickly things could go wrong with these surveillance mechanisms in place, and spiteful, authoritarian politicians taking power.
> and spiteful, authoritarian politicians taking power.
Or spiteful, authoritarian non-politicians taking power, spreading misinformation, and censoring free speech:
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/03/musk-shows-us-what-actua...
Musk is a libertarian not an authoritarian.
His job is to reduce the size and power of government.
Authoritarians don’t do that. Libertarians do that. Two opposite ends of the spectrum.
“Misinformation” is a very subjective word, so I’m afraid you and I will have to agree to disagree that Musk is spreading misinformation.
Don’t believe everything you read about Musk in the mainstream media. Don’t forget that the media have a vested interest in denigrating Musk, because he’s their most significant competitor, and while X exists, and we’re able to hear directly from influential people, the legacy media is powerless to control the narrative.
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