I wasn’t joking when I said the ccp spies on their citizens and I wasn’t joking when I said the US spies on their citizens after the Patroit Act. The normalization of a surveillance police state all across the world is terrifying.
Uk too.
Chinese citizen would be living under
Correction: Chinese citizens already living under a surveillance state. UK and now US and also many other countries is merely learning from the best(worst). Mandatory age verification for socmed and game? China already have that years ago. ISP level blocking? Great Firewall of China is there from the beginning.
End to end encryption chats are banned in China btw. China is living in this complete dystopia already and the only reason we don’t hear it because China is very good at hiding this. The great firewall is as much to contain Chinese inside as it is to repel others.
End to end encryption chats are banned in China btw
I know imessage is commonly used and it’s e2e. The firewall is a blacklist not a whitelist, and Github isn’t blocked. They would have to manually block any server that hosts matrix/xmpp if they wanted to actually enforce that. The most annoying thing they do (at least in Shanghai) is the ISP’s have
raw.githubusercontent.comresolve to0.0.0.0, but you can just manually add the ip in your/etc/hostsfile. Maybe it’s to make downloading releases tarballs more annoying to encourage domestic alternatives?China is very good at hiding this
then how do you know about this ?
Seriously, I don’t understand the fucking hard on that regular people seem to have to wash one shit nation with the other. We don’t have to choose a boot to lick
The US was spying on all backbone data 20 years ago. The US has no need to block websites because it has a big enough propaganda network to control the narrative on those websites, and there is less incentive to propping up the US tech industry by blocking competition like there is with the Chinese tech industry.
Capitalists are constantly telling on themselves.
This isn’t a capitalism problem. It’s an authoritarianism problem. The only thing about this that relates to capitalism is that it’s a private company setting up the cameras instead of the state doing it.
That’s a gross over simplification that ignores the influence of the insurance industry shifting the baseline of public surveillance and crony capitalism that infects our municipalities.
Yes, that’s how it’s implemented under capitalism.
States further into their authoritarianism don’t need to bother with middle men and cutouts and shit.
They just put up the cameras.
Capitalists have been trying to build the panopticon since the first factories.
Capitalism is pretty inherently authoritarian. The boss calls the shots.
“Decentralize the mass surveillance!” cries the anarcho-libertarian. “Big Government is monopolizing all the cameras! We should let the market decide who gets spied on!”
This is absolutely a capitalism problem. It’s what happens when you let corporations do whatever without consequences as long as they can afford the bribes and in turn get contacts on taxpayer money.
True, but I could also see an authoritarian “communist” government doing all the same surveillance bullshit.
So, while it’s a capitalism problem this time, I don’t think it’s a capitalism-exclusive problem. It really is, at its root, an authoritarianism problem. This time, you’ve got capitalist authoritarianism, but next time maybe a different flavor.
China already has this sort of system completely built out.
I’ll tell you more, the UK is one of the leading countries in cameras per capita, either installed or accessible by the authorities (not sure about exact details). They built government surveillance without any communism in sight.
(Leaving alone that China’s state capitalism is the opposite of communism.)
In 2023, China had over 700 million cameras tracking the population.
That’s one camera for every two citizens.
But yes the UK is also building a surveillance state.
Yeah, it’s creepy. There’s almost no secure place in the world at this point.
But is the technology developed by the state or are they contracting it out to a private company?
How does that matter?
Both are fucking horrible.
But also, China does both. In 2023 they had over 700 million cameras tracking people.
State: communist.
Private: capitalist.
End result: authoritarianism.
You can’t get rid of authoritarianism the same way you can’t get rid of stupid. Some portion of the population will always be the bottom of the bell curve.
What you can do, however, is redirect it into something positive. For example, Japanese social structures are pretty fuckin’ authoritarian. Most people wouldn’t even dream of littering.
You can’t get rid of authoritarianism the same way you can’t get rid of stupid.
True, but you can get rid of hierarchical authority itself, leaving the authoritarians nothing to work with. Ask your local anarchist how.
Authoritarianism means very little, it’s such a broad term that doesn’t localise the origin of repression. Instead of considering the root of the problem here, which is capitalism/private property, you look at a feature or a phenomenon.
Meh, there’s some smart people that have come up with a pretty clear understanding of authoritarianism.
https://theauthoritarians.org/
But your conclusion is also partly correct, the authoritarian personality is not inherently bad, they must first be weaponized.
I didn’t say anything about the authoritarian personality and I don’t really care that some people have figured out something they view as being integral to comprehending society. Honestly, I find life under the systems people like Fromm consider least authoritarian, think Sweden in the 70s, to still be be very brutal towards the masses.
But you know what, I believe your conclusion is also party correct. People with an “authoritarian” streak can be used to guard a worker’s movement.
So every capitalist country is authoritarian?
Yes, necessarily so if we were to take the epithet that is “authoritarianism” seriously. We just don’t talk about what women in marriage have to put up with (the old adage of not biting the hand that feeds one), how we treat children and how accepted it is to subject people to dismal working conditions. It’s considered normal, this is the status quo. You need to enforce property laws with deadly force, suppress movements and the organic formation of opinions and views, in order to for the system to keep functioning as it has.
Just to recheck, you’re saying that Scandinavian countries are authoritarian?
And, you realize that some capitalist countries with private property and capitalist markets, in practice approach anarchy?
Just to recheck, you’re saying that Scandinavian countries are authoritarian?
Yes of course I am. I am Scandinavian. Have you ever travelled across the Öresund Bridge in a bus? They stop 50+ passengers for upwards of 45 minutes, pull out all the black and arab people seeking work, as well those who look particularly poor, subject them to highly invasive searches and then send some back if they feel like they can get away with it. Or take entering Gothenburg’s harbor by ferry. The send a military ship out to escort your boat. They don’t really have to do this, but they do it to really show you who is the boss/who has authority. When you arrive, something similar to the bus example happens. Take the all the black people into special rooms, make people walk past drug sniffing dogs (that have incredibly high rates of false positives, but that doesn’t matter because it’s about creating anxiety), and metal detectors. it’s not just designed to scare minorities, it’s also meant to incite fear in regular people.
Also, search SÄPO, they are so lacking in transparency that even Swedish government media can’t deny their lack of oversight and unbridled power.
And, you realize that some capitalist countries with private property and capitalist markets, in practice approach anarchy?
I do. Anarchy of production is the chief reason why climate change can’t be battled by capitalism. I am not an anarchist, I don’t know why you are bringing this up.
That’s how they get away with it too. Worst constitutional loophole ever.
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Capitalism is about gaining all power (capital). Its end goal is complete surveillance. 2+2 = 4
The same thing is happening/has already happened in China, the government there can find you and black bag you anywhere at any time. Ask Naomi Wu.
Russia basically is this already.
Europe is also trying to go there with the repeated attempts to pass chat control and age restrictions on internet access.
In the US, capitalism is the tool the authoritarians are using to accomplish their goals, and it is absolutely enabling the spread of the surveillance state. Capitalism itself is not the motivation for the surveillance state, it’s just being used by the authoritarians. If we’re going to put a stop to this kind of behavior, we have to get the targets right. Flock and the other companies like them are a symptom of the larger problem.
Ask Naomi Wu.
To my knowledge, Naomi Wu was never “black bagged”. She’s still selling stuff on cybernightmarket. She’s just done posting politics.
But to compare the grief Wu got (and, from what I read forever ago, it was as much other terminally online types screaming at her as any state intervention) with Leqaa Kordia or Mahmoud Khalil both of whom absolutely were “black bagged” in the literal sense? Wu was not indefinitely detained in a prison camp or threatened with torture unless she “voluntarily self-deported”, at least as far as I could find.
Russia basically is this already.
Russia is so much more, as they’ve weaponized their prison population into military conscripts.
Really not looking forward to the day I’m arrested by an ICE agent who is, himself, wearing a bomb collar.
Capitalism itself is not the motivation for the surveillance state
The surveillance state is a vital tool of private industry when executives fear a proletariat insurrection. It is a necessary precondition to prevent insurrection.
Russia is so much more, as they’ve weaponized their prison population into military conscripts.
It’s even more than that. Russia has weaponized their entire civilian population. It’s straight up nazi-level shit where you’re either Z or you’re a traitor. This is what American maga salivates about - complete and utter obedience through surveillance, legal and cultural bullying.
To my knowledge, Naomi Wu was never “black bagged”. She’s still selling stuff on cybernightmarket. She’s just done posting politics.
She disappeared from western social media, where she was very active before. Her latest post on twitter was chilling, I just hope she and her partner are ok.
Wu said. “- absolutely no one gives a shit. I could be dead in a ditch- but we aren’t actually people, we’re just signs for people like you in the West to wave at each other in their ideological war.”
:-/
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…including, like, the custodian?
You’re not going to win over undecided people by advocating for unreasonable, indiscriminate violence, you’re just going to give the opposition ammunition for calling you an extremist.
It would be far more productive to support groups like the EFF and ACLU in lobbying for legislation to prevent such abusive technology. Also get involved in your local town/county politics to advocate against the installation of such things. The absolute last thing the sick fuckers running companies like Flock want is for people to organize against them. Don’t push people away, encourage them to join.
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Cut it with your divisive fetishism
Pick a side.
Right… I’m the one being divisive, by saying that we should organize and work together. Hilarious.
systems that have already proven useless
The thing doing the most damage to Flock right now is the negative public opinion pushing counties and townships to cancel contracts. Those “useless” systems are actively responding to the demands of their citizens, and Flock cameras are being removed in many jurisdictions. The way you hurt a capitalist enterprise is to take away its money (loss of contracts).
So, how about you “pick a side” and join in with the effort that is actually producing results?
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/09/flock-cameras-backlash-cancellations-01026242
https://banflockcameras.com/tracker/
Take Action
We don’t have to accept this future. You can:
Stay informed about local meetings: ALPR.watch provides a calendar and map of upcoming public meetings with agenda items related to Flock and other surveillance systems. You can sign up for email alerts when meetings near you are scheduled.
Contact your local officials and demand transparency and oversight of surveillance programs. (See 5 Calls)
Support organizations like the ACLU and the EFF who challenge mass surveillance in the courts and legislatures.
Start conversations with neighbors and community groups about the risks of systems like Flock.
Share this website and make your community aware.
It isn’t just a surveillance state, they are 100% building a behavior prediction algorithm state.
The US government already started pre-crime policing. No future tense about it, full on dystopia is already here.
It won’t just be precrime, that’s perhaps the most obvious and most blunt use. Essentially, prediction allows for deeper understanding of which actions affects our behavior and how, so they know what to do to get what they want from us. Its next level manipulation of subsets of the populace that results in massive increase in disempowerment. You thought we were powerless before? These tools are digital shepherds and prison guards for all of us.
Has the wealthy class worked for or against your interests? If they gain more power, will they work for or against your interests? I don’t see anything but tragedy resulting from their further empowerment.
John Oliver just did an episode on Police Surveillance Technology. It’s sad and scary stuff.
He also mentioned Atlas of Surveillance, a website to check what’s going on in your area.
If a man is guilty for what goes on in his mind
Then give me the electric chair for all my future crimes
Season 3 of Westworld seems to be a bit more realistic than I had initially thought.
I seriously need to get this giant big cyberpunk writing/worldbuilding project of mine on the road.
Because at the moment, cyberpunk is becoming aspirational. Reality is just, dunno, cyberpunk but dumb as hell.
I like to call it burgerpunk
Its really just called capitalism
Better get the guillotines ready, make the french proud
We weren’t jokingly saying the Chinese are living under it, though.
Yeah because you were stupid and gullible. :)
You don’t have to choose a boot to lick. Get off your knees and stand up, you fucking loser
The surveillance state is not just in the US. China and the UK love that shit too. Pretty much any government with the money and will for it is doing it for the benefit of a digital panopticon.
Funny how this surveillance never correlates with any happiness or safety metrics. It’s almost like it’s not there to improve society but to control it or something 🤔
For decades people have been warming about inverted totalitarianism… where private companies do the heavy lifting in controlling and surveillance or the population. Very few listened. Now that we are approaching complete sacrifice of your privacy to these companies, people are finally waking up. But it may be too late.
Guillotines
Americans weren’t joking when they said that stuff about China, they were parroting an exaggerated version of the reality, which was being fed to them by people who don’t actually care about limiting mass surveillance.
And what’s worse, eventually all the information gathered from all this surveillance will be turned into training data for AI. So right now, for all intents and purposes, none of us has any true privacy. And one of the most deeply damaging aspects of this is that it changes how we think. Subconsciously, when we’re engaged in thinking and we have even a brief idea that our thoughts might somehow, someday be known (through the actions of a surveillance state, for example), we reframe our ideas so that one day they will be known by someone else; they will have an audience. This is a much different state than when we’re able to think with the freedom of knowing, even subconsciously, that our ideas are completely private.
Surely if the US is engaging in mass surveillance than China can’t be… otherwise which superpower am I supposed to cheer for?
Edgar Friendly
Always thought it was weird that they would scoff at their “social credit score” system. Emphasis on “social”. As if that was the fucked up part.
It amazes me that the western propaganda keeps talking about a Chinese social credit system that is an extension of existing social rankings and ratings in China which have existed for millennia, but no one blinks an eye to this American credit system that is horrendous. The Chinese system is mainly in place for business, not so much the individual, like in the US.
The US credit system is a way to make the poor, poorer with insane interest rates that are illegal in other parts of the world. The matrix for the credit system is unclear as it is managed by private companies. The whole thing is insane, but no let’s point at evil China where the system has no impact on normal people, unlike in the US.
I don’t think China really has a social credit score do they? It was an abandoned pilot
except china ALSO has a credit system, exactly the same one we do in the west but with a nice topping of authoritarian dystopian government inputs. yay!
You live outside reality in propaganda land. Yay!
What? You imply that china has no credit system?
China was the testbed. All of them are doing the same thing
As the future becomes less certain and less secure due to climate change and capitalist overextension, basically every major government is looking for ways to efficiently control their populace through technology. Arguably the countries with the strongest totalitarian tools would be the most suited to weather that long-term catastrophe.
Can’t riot about access to food if everyone who so much as says an idle word in their own home is put on a “reeducation” pathway.
Palestine is the testing grounds for surveillance, drones, weaponry, and testing how public opinion will be around a crisis & genocide. Now they’re planning to test it upon their own citizens once they finish moving/genociding immigrants.
China was no testbed. Stop deluding yourself. No surveillance even close to this happened in China…
It’d still be a testbed if US just followed that inspiration and surpassed it
Not a China fan, but at least I can travel to China without getting arrested.
That’s only true if you only do and say things online that China approves of.
China has secret police, and has for decades.
ICE is Trump’s attempt at creating a secret police.
ICE are just brownshirts, you’re thinking of the CIA and FBI.
Nope. Proud Boys are the brown shirts. Non-governmental paramilitary fighters.
FBI was an actual law enforcement organization, but has been gutted.
The CIA isn’t a boogie man inside the US. They’ve fucked up enough times that very few people respect them. Also they don’t really do domestic spying.
No, the NSA is the one who does domestic spying.
And finally ICE, an agency that is 100% filled with diehard Trump supporters. They’re already abducting innocent people off the street and vanishing them. Masked thugs working for the state vanishing people without warrants is sort of the basic definition of secret police.
Proud boys aren’t a paramilitary, you’re thinking of the regular cops.
FBI was an actual law enforcement organization, but has been gutted.
Lol
The CIA isn’t a boogie man inside the US.
Lol
I’ll give you that I forgot to include the NSA among your secret police apparatus though.
Masked thugs working for the state vanishing people without warrants is sort of the basic definition of secret police.
All of them are masked! Even your cops are masked thugs who kill and disappear people without warrants. They have black sites!
Look, I said that I can travel to China without getting arrested. That is a fact. I can’t say the same about the USA. If they knew I was coming to the states they would also know what I’ve posted and liked with 90% certainty, and believe me, they don’t want someone who’s been this deep into “anti-capitalism” as me entering the country. The United States government has more than enough reasons to go full stick instead of carrot when we consider its failing economy and the rebirth of social movements.
I know what I can expect in China, I know that they won’t arrest someone because they once posted a picture of a yellow umbrella or liked a John Oliver video. That is too much of a hassle and China is currently liberalising, just like Kuwait and Qatar. Plans about opening the great firewall up have been floated again and again, and authorities are seriously considering doing that.
Plus you’re are completely, and I hope I don’t sound too much like a stereotypical ML – which I am not despite being on this instance – ignoring the CIA and DHS. Two, as it were, secret federal agencies with powers that go well beyond what the FBI or ATF can do. These have existed for decades. States simply have secret polices.
I know what I can expect in China, I know that they won’t arrest someone because they once posted a picture of a yellow umbrella or liked a John Oliver video.
Post about how their president resembles the Pooh on social media and try again.
I hate posting Reddit links: https://www.reddit.com/r/chinalife/comments/1h2aodg/winnie_the_pooh_sold_in_miniso_store_in_shanghai/
Winnie the Pooh is not “banned” in China, nor does posting comparison pictures to Twitter or wherever bar you from entering. This is a tiny tidbit that has been blown out of proportion by sensationalist media. Forgotten pretty much everywhere but remembered in the US and Europe. Yeah, you have die-hard China stans in the comments, but my point still stands.
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-50166474
Winnie the pooh being censored is absurd and I wouldn’t exclude it from having happened once at any point (shit like this happens on Reddit all the time with US state interest aligned moderators), but you know what’s even more absurd? Harping on about it as if it were this big thing that Chinese authorities deeply care about. The joke making a joke out of the joker is something truly unique to the media circus. Reminds me of Japanese people who literally think that London is being firebombed and looted by migrants.
Good for you.
The point still stands: i wouldn’t extensively criticize China’s government online (use Tibet or Tiananmen instead of Pooh then) and then expect to fly in without any eyebrows being raised at the gate.First of all, supposing you are not posting under your government name, how are the Chinese supposed to know who is making posts if they are not made on sites controlled by Chinese firms? Secondly, do you not think that they know that a lot of Americans and Europeans flying into China have less-than-positive views? At this point the top officials who design policy are expecting it to some extent. It would be unsustainable to be repressive in that way.
I’m one of the people who always says that Lenin was a fucking monster, and that no authoritarian can ever be communist. Which includes China.
I’m 100% sure that if I ever found myself going to China, I’d be arrested for calling Xi a fascist poo bear playing pretend at communism.
I’m also quite certain that come November Trump will start working up to arresting people for things said online. I’m sure I’ll be at risk for calling him a pedo and posting this link; https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/6/1578544/-The-Untold-Story-of-Trump-Model-Management-A-Daily-Kos-Exclusive-Part-1
I sense you would also moralise about Napoleon being a “fucking monster”. Lenin was a historical figure and he found himself guided by forces of the time. Aside from his rhetorical skill he wasn’t particularly special, nor was he a super nice person. It wouldn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things if he was.
I am not saying this to dismiss your qualms. Mistakes were definitely made. Revolutions need to be learned from and its conducive to revolutions that violence is kept at a minimum. But let’s not fool ourselves into believing that we can all hold hands and dance socialism/communism into existence. This sort of change has a lot of potential to be messy. I don’t need to tell you this, but the Russian revolution was deeply troubled by a strong counter-revolution.
Let’s get to your point about going to China. Libertarian professors are employed at Chinese universities, there are regular expressions of protest that don’t land the protester in jail, think of nail houses, and social media figures as well as journalists who have criticised China in the past have travelled there without too much trouble. I don’t think the state cares all that much about your dislike, they have bigger fish to fry. The populace is also quite content, so your agitating, if you were to commit to it, would attract confusion more than anything else. Sure, you might have the cops called on you. What happens then though? At worst you’ll be sent back to whence you came as China doesn’t want to get into diplomatic rows. You are unlikely to become an O. Warmbier.
Lenin wasn’t just “guided by the forces of his time”
His first act after couping the provisional government was the creation of the Checka, a secret police force that he used to arrest all the Socialist Revolutionaries, the people responsible for the February Revolution. Also the winners of Russia’s only free and fair election.
He then wrote about how “vanguard parties” and totalitarian dictatorship were somehow part of communism.
No, Lenin was a power hungry monster who shit on Marx’s dream.
You need to realise that Marx is just a guy. Marx wrote things that can be interpreted as being in support of reformism and things that can be interpreted as being against reformism. He was very racist at times and at others he was woker than 95% of BLM protesters. Marx isn’t a god or a hero, nor is he someone who had a dream per-se. He went actively against dreamers and utopians because he saw it as a real danger to make promises that might not conform to reality, while of course opposing naive realism or bargain bin political realism. He was in the truest sense a scientist, a critic, someone who was much closer to a nihilist than a naive activist. He revised his views multiple times throughout his life, as he went from being a romantic to something closer to a systems theorist. To put him into diametrical opposition to Lenin tells me that you understand neither beyond a Wikipedia level reading and that is being charitable.
To say that Lenin personally created the VChK without crediting the chaos and antagonisms is absolute insanity. It’s even crazier to say that he was a power hungry monster, as if it were a property that came out of a vacuum. There was a war going on. The stone you sat on while taking a break was a power hungry monster, this isn’t even a discussion, nor is it telling us much.
The provisional government failed, and not by some “evil” Leninist influence but because of the PG did not want to drop out of WWI partly because they were banking on being good with capitalist nations, which is a big big big deal. The SR had been in a cul-de-sac and the Bolsheviks yanked the movement out of it. The persecution of the SR needs to be questioned, no freaking doubt. Dismissing the Leninist vanguard however, the success of the Soviet Revolution, is deeply disrespectful to the proletarians who were at the base of the movement.
I have to repeat that I am not even a Leninist. I really do not believe that he should be worshipped and there were certainly questions of organisation that could have been handled differently. You are misrepresenting things egregiously.
Please stop this narrative. Western Marxists/communists and their purity posturing is exhausting. Say what you will of the CPC but it is a party that has taken China from backwater country to world leader within 60-70 years. Do you want China to instead be “democratic” the way the US is?
Do you want China to instead be “democratic” the way the US is?
Totally not a false dichotomy.
Source?
None because the police are secret
I hope you realize how stupid that sounds
Shh… they are taking the piss out of the argument of the person you are responding to lol
I suspected it tbh but u can’t be sure
ICE? You seem to be forgetting at least the NSA.
Didn’t forget them, they’re not sending masked thugs to vanish people from the street.
The NSA is a spy org, but not full of Trump loyalists.
Trump is focusing on ICE, because it is full of specifically Trump loyalists.
ICE is Trump’s attempt at creating a secret police.
He’s not being very secretive about it.
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I am sorry, how is this any different from say Germany where they just put you under EU sanctions without trial for criticising the Gaza genocide, because it supposedly plays into Putin’s hands (despite Russia not having as much of a stance in contrast to Iran)?
China has been proposing its surveillance model to other countries through their new silk roads (or whatever the name is)
This is almost certainly pulled out of your ass
You could have checked by yourself but instead chose to say this? You come of as lazy, insulting and ignorant, and for what? Beats me. Tankie maybe?
Edit: tankie. I took the time to find links, for nothing. Tankies are the plague of Lemmy
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/world/china-surveillance-solomon-islands-trump-nepal.html
https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-civil-society-exposes-human-rights-risks-digital-silk-road
Why yes, the reputable NY times and American think tank. You’re brainwashed and stupid – American in other words
They are openly doing it, it’s no secret. They call iit smart cities and safe policing
You’re not in sync with the party it seems.
Not even good at being a tankie lapdog. That’s sad.
Lol swallow Trump’s dick you American piece of garbage
I’m not american you bell end
Belt and road
Seems like USA is trying to be everything bad with china with none of the good parts
What good parts are there in China for the average citizen?
IDK their public transit and high speed trains seem pretty good. And they seem to actually be building high density, walkable housing (and it must be relatively affordable if some people can afford 2 or 3 places to live).
What ever happened to that Social Credit score
Based on this Polymatter video, seems like it was mostly an exaggeration of different systems (suggestion for cities to encourage heathy behavior like not smoking cigarettes being conflated with punishments for rich people who don’t pay fines), and not really the 1984-style punishment for “thought crimes” that Americans seemed to think.
Seems to have been mostly projection. America is the one with the “social credit score” that is used to judge people’s worth before most important transactions.
Umm not sure if you have been to China or actually know people from there, but no, public transportation isn’t good everywhere (especially in rural regions), and housing absolutely isn’t affordable, typically you need an entire families worth of income that goes to the son to afford a home, and on top of that, when you buy a home in China, you are given 70 year lease on the land, so not sure how many Americans would want that sort of thing. Great thinking of how things are far worse in other countries though.
Hard to believe it can get worse than somewhere like Arlington, TX (or any of the many other semi suburban places in America with NO public transit (as in not a single public bus or greyhound-type a day). I feel like 70 year lease would help stop the rich from hoarding generational wealth and giving it to their kids, allowing everyone a chance at getting a house when the parents die, though not sure how well it works in practice.
housing absolutely isn’t affordable typically you need an entire families worth of income that goes to the son to afford a home, and on top of that, when you buy a home in China, you are given 70 year lease on the land, so not sure how many Americans would want that sort of thing.
Weird how despite all that, the home ownership rate in China is 96%
Maybe read up a little more on that before touting that 90% number. Not exactly sure you’ll enjoy those results: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes/
What part of any of that am I supposed to be scandalized by, exactly? Because I read the whole article and I didn’t see a single reason I shouldn’t be touting the 96% home ownership rate.
Not to glaze surveillance, but at the very least it can have some positive results, like in China, where it helped bring down crime to non-existent levels, and increased public safety.
You can just leave your stuff on the street and come back for it later, without worrying about theft. Whether or not it balances the negatives is another question entirely, but I think we can all agree some upsides beat no upsides any day.
As opposed to countries such as the US, Australia or the UK, where surveillance is used for nothing but spying on you and ensuring you’re as miserable as physically possible. Nobody even bothers using the existing surveillance infrastructure for any positive effects. It’s like everything only has the sole purpose of benefitting the oligarchs.
Similarly, the EU is slowly pushing some surveillance plans, with no thought behind them whatsoever. As of right now, they’d be a 100% net loss for everyone, everywhere, in every situation, except the tiny elite class.
I guess they just got tired of pretending lately. Even the good old “think about the children” is used less often nowadays. Soon it’ll just be “submit without question or get executed.”
For so many years we’ve been manipulated to be grateful for everything, because we could always be living in a dystopia like China. And here we are, moving in a considerably worse direction, without even the slightest benefits of those dystopian structures.
Have we forgotten the most effective ways of keeping politicians in check?
You know what eliminates crime way better than cameras? Eliminating poverty.
Murica: “understood”
begins eliminating the poor
In the United States the murder resolution rate is around 50% (in Canada it is around 60-something%) meaning despite massive surveillance they don’t catch a lot of the more serious crimes. In NYC the most surveilled areas actually have lower murder resolution rates.
In NYC the most surveilled areas actually have lower murder resolution rates.
There’s really no way that could be a causal relationship. It’d be worth diving into the data to figure out which variables are related to each of these.
Even the good old “think about the children” is used less often nowadays. Soon it’ll just be “submit without question or get executed.”
TBH we have the “think of the corporations” line these days that’s used more than think of the children
Think of the poor, starving slumlords before passing that anti-rent gouging bill!
poor blackrock! how can we expect people to ever live in a society if they can’t exploit people and then see their plans through to make profit from them at the expense of literally everyone else?!?!
I’d rather have to worry about my shit being stolen than have ANY government owned cameras tbh. I like a little crime in my life.
For so many years we’ve been manipulated to be grateful for everything, because we could always be living in a dystopia like China
I’d like to know what world you’ve been living in where that was the case because for as long as I can remember, being raised in America we are taught about the racism, economic issues, and rise of inequality, and watching it blasted on the news
You are grossly generalizing a country with 50 individual education systems let alone how different regions like the south are from the northeast.
You’re trying to make the same point you’re willfully missing yourself.
