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Comment by zombieprocesses | Hacker News Reader

> China is the living embodiment of what 1984 can look like in 2018.

Or britain - you know the place that 1984 was about. Or germany, spain, canada, russia, saudi arabia, etc.

> I do wonder if an ever increasing crackdown and everything ultimately becomes so unwieldy that the whole country falls apart.

People like gordon chang have been wondering for decades now. Wouldn't hold my breath on it though. China has a few decades more of development and urbanization ahead of it. They'll continue to grow for a few more years.

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"Or britain - you know the place that 1984 was about. Or germany, spain, canada, russia, saudi arabia, etc."

What rubbish. The assertion that nations like Canada are comparable in terms of freedom to nations like Russia and Saudi Arabia is utterly bizarre.

It seems that you can burn a foto of the King of Spain without any punishment, according to the Strasbourg European Court.

You could not use the letter N in China for some time without being blocked.

I perceive a difference.

Some countries are a lot closer to 1984 than others. The EU and US are considerably further away from an authoritarian dictatorship than countries like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia.

> Some countries are a lot closer to 1984 than others.

Yes. Britain is far ahead of everyone at this moment. I'm sure china and the rest are desperate to catch up.

> The EU and US

As an american, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't lump us in with the EU. EU is a lot closer to china than you think in terms of political system, censorship and mentality. After all, the EU heavily censors parodies and "hate" speech and is at the forefront of internet censorship.

I'm afraid america stands alone in many respects but we have our own challenges. We are most definitely not perfect.

>Yes. Britain is far ahead of everyone at this moment. I'm sure china and the rest are desperate to catch up.

I don't think you even believe that horseshit.

Considering Britain is banning journalists like Lauren Southern and convicting people for making jokes on youtube ( count dankula ), I most certainly believe it.

Not only that, Britain is the most surveilled society on earth.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/6108496.stm

That's from 2006. Britain has at least a decade head start. But china is working very hard to catch up on their surveillance.

But I guess it's evil when they do it, but it's "civilized" when britain does it?

The laws may be similar, but the punishments are not. In the UK and other authoritarian EU countries, people are fined or jailed for certain speech. In China, people "disappear".

but yet.. https://rsf.org/en/ranking

> Yes. Britain is far ahead of everyone at this moment. I'm sure china and the rest are desperate to catch up.

What makes you say that? Last I checked, the UK was still a democracy, still had freedom of speech laws, and still doesn't ban VPNs, Tor, or other anonymity tools.

> As an american, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't lump us in with the EU. EU is a lot closer to china than you think in terms of political system, censorship and mentality.

And yet the US is ranked 43rd in the Press Freedom Index, behind all EU members except Romania, Italy and Poland.

> After all, the EU heavily censors parodies and "hate" speech and is at the forefront of internet censorship.

China is clearly at the forefront of Internet censorship. I don't see how that's even debatable.

Have you seen the "Nazi Pug" case from a few days ago? The UK may not be a dictatorship, but they are certainly extremist authoritarians.

For the record, this is the video that was enough to arrest and convict a man:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYslEzHbpus&bpctr=1521821668

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