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Comment by monkeynotes | Hacker News Reader

The ads were hugely dystopian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw

I am an ex-pat and as an adult I am have become quite disillusioned with the UK and glad to have gotten out a decade ago. I miss nothing about England except my friends, and I'd feel sorry for them, but they all seem mostly happy with life.

Paying a license to have a TV (and it's assumed you must watch TV), opt in porn on the internet, CCTV everywhere, braying in parliament, not to mention the whole Brexit shit-show, I find little to admire about the UK.

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I don't begrudge the TV licence too much. I used to, and then I moved to Ireland - where I pay a roughly equivalent amount for a roughly equivalent licence, which funds RTÉ (and tg4? unclear) with nowhere near the same results. And still ads.

It turns out the better half of Europe has TV licences in one form or another - but for some reason, we never hear about them. When the UK has to fund a state broadcaster, it's dystopian. When everyone else does it, it's business as usual.

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence )

The enforcement actions and publicizing of the license in the UK seem to be the most dystopian, in Ireland it's a bit over the top as well

But you're right, it is present in multiple countries, I think Germany and France just turned it into a household fee

I think there’s talk of moving to a household fee here too. Oddly, making it universal seems to be more acceptable than a consumption tax. On one hand, I can see the plus sides - there’s a lot more ways to consume national broadcasters now, and it seems strange that I should pay to receive the national broadcaster on my TV, but if I scrapped the TV and watched it on my laptop, I wouldn’t (I know the UK complicates that further than we do).

On the hand, it feels unintuitive that there’s now no way to opt out. But I’m not sure how we delineate universal taxes (eg, my taxes pay for schools but I don’t use them) vs consumption taxes (I don’t pay road tax because I don’t drive). We still ultimately need to pay for them somehow - I don’t drive, but I still depend on roads.

IIRC (and this was dear to my heart in the UK as a non-motor-vehicle-driving taxpayer), road tax isn't a thing. There's vehicle excise duty, but that's not earmarked for roads (since 1937, according to https://ipayroadtax.com/no-such-thing-as-road-tax/bring-back...).

Also: "The maintenance and improvement of these roads are funded through local council taxes, fees, and central government grants." - https://www.loc.gov/law/help/infrastructure-funding/englanda...

So rest assured that if you pay tax in the UK, you pay for roads along with other infrastructure and services.

And now for something completely different... I recall being told, by a man who knocked on my door in a college residence, that the van had detected my television. I had no television set. He asked to come in and look. I declined and he went away. Either enforcement by deception, or a creep using a pretext to get into womens' college rooms. Either way, bad!

I do miss the BBC website without ads and BBC iPlayer though. We had a television in later years (and a license).

In Italy it has been merged into electricity bills. I kid you not. And of course, the state broadcaster (RAI) is still chock-full of ads on all its channels. This is because it's not a media organisation as much as a cash-machine for aides and cronies of the government du-jour, with each channel literally allocated informally to each major party. You can imagine the average production quality.

Turkey does the electricity bill thing too.

Same for RTS in Serbia, worse even because not only do we HAVE to pay the TV license via power bill, or get sued and have power cut off (I kid you not, because of the TV license fee!) (happened to me), RTS also has 8 commercial channels that are funded from the public's money, which are only available on select cable networks.

It's RTS 1, RTS 2, RTS 3, RTS HD (which is redundant since the 3 channels are already in Full HD), and then RTS 24/7, RTS Drama, RTS Archive, RTS Music, RTS Life, RTS Kids, RTS Music 2, RTS VOD and RTS SVOD, RTS [something I can't translate] (all names are translated from Serbian).

The TV service is the only one with HD terrestrial broadcasting, and yet it's production quality is absolute garbage (I mean literally, the video quality is absolutely terrible, I'm not even talking about the topics they deal with).

Basically, a money sink and waste of time. People who have SBB (United Group) watch N1 (CNN affiliate) in Full HD (with 30 Mbps bitrate, compared to 4 Mbps for RTS 1 HD).

People who don't have SBB cable, are stuck with the low level garbage channels from our state broadcaster.

"enforcement" consists of them sending you nasty letters, then after after 6 months knocking on the door and asking "sir do you own a television set"

to which my response was "sod off", and they did

repeat again every 5 years

It does get escalated sometimes https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/24/in-court-non...

the only way of that happening is if they happen to observe you being naughty (i.e. live TV through the window when they call), or you admit to being naughty when they ask their questions

as someone who hasn't watched broadcast TV in years (or iplayer): I'm not worried

Ah yes I wouldn't worry if I didn't have a TV.

The rest of Europe has always looked at the BBC as a model (if not THE model) of public-service broadcasting. I honestly don't understand why it's so controversial inside Britain - or rather I do, and it's not a pretty sight (the criticism comes from people with other interests in manipulating public discourse through the media, like a certain infamous Australian and his tabloid pals).

The real cancer of UK society is the tabloid press, now mutating into socialmedia-powered viral linkfarms. The BBC is absolutely fine.

What's dystopian is not the tv license, is their style of public communication. In general public communication in the UK feels sometimes very direct and almost threatening. The sense of authority and hierarchy implied is palpable. Not for nothing the UK is source of some wonderful parodies on the theme: for example the Scarfolk series:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/digging-through-the-ar...

Or one of my favourite Monthy Python sketches:

"How not to be seen": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGv8oAHxekU

Or the anti-piracy ad from the IT crowd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPEeaxI0OPU

>> It turns out the better half of Europe has TV licences in one form or another - but for some reason, we never hear about them.

It's probably because in the rest of Europe national broadcasters don't badger you to pay a license even if you don't actually own a TV set.

In the UK, I get threatening red-lettered envelopes every few years- because it's easier to harass me by mail than to try and figure out whether I watch TV or not.

And the threat is quite real. The broadcaster can send people to your house to snoop around, to see if you have a TV set or not. These agents are known to take liberties with the extend of their power (they will allege that they can enter your property whether you agree to let them in, or not) and there is basically nothing stopping them from stating that you are watching a TV programme as it is being broadcast if you have have equipment capable of doing so, such as a computer, or just a smartphone.

Basically, the TV licensing people in the UK are convinced that, if you say that you do not watch TV you are lying, and they treat you as an offender by default.

Does any of this happen in any other European country?

In my country (Italy) we kept receiving threatening letters as well as random phone calls, sometimes even attempted inspections although unless they came with the police and a warrant you simply wouldn't let them in. Some context: the original law declared the tax was due for state owned TV reception, so when in the late 70s to 80s private owned TV stations boomed, some people modified their TV sets so that the state TV could not be received. Problem solved? Nope! the government promptly modified the tax into a more general tax. The text is so vague that it could be applied to cellphones and computers too, although they always told that's not the case, but the vague text remains. Anyways, letters, phonecalls and random visits went on for decades, then a few years back a genius politician solved the problem by integrating the TV tax within the electricity bill. If you don't own a TV set (and know your rights) you can still declare that and get the amount cut from the bill, but that will ensure an inspection will follow.

Thanks. In Greece also (where I'm originally from) the TV tax is rolled in to the electricity bill and you can opt out. I haven't heard of any inspections but that's because nothing works in the Greek public sector. Or anywhere in the whole country.

Are you arguing that because other countries do the same observing the UK has a totalitarian approach to TV licensing is a non-issue?

Also, my point was the advertising specifically, and attitude generally was dystopic, a la 1984. I am unaware of any other countries injecting that kind of narrative into their culture.

I hardly ever watch broadcast TV, but I don't mind paying the licence fee for the BBC website and radio stations.

There are plenty of things to dislike about the UK, but that seems like an odd list of things to highlight.

The porn opt-in thing has been pushed back for a year or two and will be quietly shelved when it's realised it's unworkable.

The supposedly omnipresent CCTV invariably seems to have been lost or turned off if you actually need to figure out e.g. who has nicked your bike.

I will grant you the Brexit shit-show, however; that is genuinely horrific.

> The porn opt-in thing has been pushed back for a year or two and will be quietly shelved when it's realised it's unworkable.

Actually it's 'indefinitely postponed now, after it was realised about the end of June that it was a violation of EU law (also, it was May's baby, and she's gone, Boris is a pro-porn kinda guy).

You don't have to pay for a license for a TV, you just tell them you don't watch live broadcast/streaming and they send a letter every free years.

All years are free if you don't pay for a license for a TV ;)

There's plenty to complain about re: the UK, but none of what you're complaining about is unique to the UK, or even uncommon (except for opt-in porn, that one's odd)

Most other countries with public broadcasting just roll the "TV license" into your taxes. CCTV everywhere (that the government can afford to put it) is commonplace in most countries (the USA being something of an exception).

Politicians acting like children is standard. In fact, I'd say that it's a desired feature of the Westminster System. Question Time/PMQs, although sometimes childish, serve an important role in the democratic process and open government. At least filibusters aren't commonplace, unlike in the USA.

I think this argument is a form of logical fallacy. I'd complain about any country that equated to the UK in some way. No country is perfect, some appeal to me more than others, countries like the UK do not and their implementation of governance conflicts with my principles.

Where did you move to?

Canada

Here in Canada we all get taxed for CBC, including people with no TV or radio.

This is true.

What I have found with ex-pats is they left somewhere and feel free to criticise it and give these as reasons they are glad they left. They also ignore similar issues in their new nation or ignore other aspects of their new nation. Arguing that they are not responsible for that as an ex-pat.

Not labelling all expats like this but the vocal ones tend to be like this.

I don't know where you moved to, but is the US anything admirable lately? Guess I should cross the UK off the list of places to flee to.

Don't flee, get involved and help fix things if you can!

Yes, he should just dedicate his life to toiling away at a problem he can't make an impact on while telling his kids and wife that he's very sorry that he can't give them a significantly better standard of living because he needs to help fix England.

No, I was miserable in the UK - I have better options elsewhere. I do not care enough about the UK to give it my life. The culture is locked in by hundreds of years of history, and a vast, vast majority of people like it the way it is.

Staying in the UK for me is like staying in an abusive relationship or a job you hate. It made me deeply unhappy, so instead of complaining and bringing my friends down I found a life to love overseas.

Fair enough. All any of us wants is happiness.

I was just thinking about the grass isn't always greener kind of situation. Everyone hopes somewhere else is going to (have to?) be better than here. Where ever there/here actually are.

Absolutely right but moving to Australia has genuinely massively improved our standard of living beyond what i thought was even possible. I can't believe how good we have it here.

I almost didn't leave when I visited Australia and New Zealand. I telecommute, so it wouldn't matter if I was across the country or the planet. Plus, getting paid in US dollars living in NZ with the strong dollar would be like a pay raise. If only I had the 'get up and do it' enough to do it.

I work from home 25 days per month - I moved well away from the city, bought a massive house next to a beautiful surf beach and my kids could not be having a better time if they tried. My partner did the same. We make over 400k joint, all from home and in a very cheap part of the country. I can't even get over how lucky I am.

I moved to NZ. Glad to get out of UK's weather and rat race.

Went to Hawaii for couple weeks one year ago. Experienced culture shock.

NZ is probably best place in the world.

Care to elaborate on that? Culture shock from what? What makes NZ the best?

If you're progressive then NZ is a good place with strong social support and networks. There's definitely plenty of faults but it's not nearly as bad as other countries in most cases.

There's also not the extreme rifts that we see elsewhere. If you look at reform for instance then there was broad cross party support for firearm reform, abortion reform, and euthanasia reform all in the last few months with both left and right parties voting for all of the above, something which would be pretty inconceivable in a country like the US where people seem to take opposite views on things just because they refuse to agree with the other side.

The population is largely free of extremists and have a culture of just getting on with things and working together, this comes from the extreme isolation which we've historically had. That leads to people being irreligious, educated, and practical.

It's very democratic and has very low levels of corruption, politicians are accessible and mostly trusted.

This is tempered by a high cost of living compared to wages.

Unfortunately we have seen a rise of US style far-right opinions and extreme views fed from the internet (like antivax and also a rise of disinformation and fake news). Ironically this may mean that politicians will be forced to become less accessible and democracy and freedoms may take a back seat to security as we've seen in the US. I hope not.

> irreligious, educated, and practical.

This is so true. People are just so multi-faceted here. I have a friend who's a developer, mechanic, investor, guitar player and a stripper.

Culture shock from drugs, homeless, guns and just this extreme lifestyle. Difficult to explain. We arrived from one island of paradise to other and sure, climate is better in Hawaii, but big cities, big trucks, big corp...

And then there was other side of anit-vax, anti-gmo, anti-progress people... We've got some of that in NZ, but nowhere close so visible.

> NZ is probably best place in the world.

Unless you're a woman of reproductive age.

A certain glass ceiling was nicely shattered by Ardern, NZ's PM. She's boosting NZ's respect abroad even further, if that was possible.

And she is working to improve NZ women's access to reproductive rights, but they're still well behind what should be expected of a civilized country.

Why is that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraceptive_rights_in_New_Ze... and specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_New_Zealand

The abortion laws are old and antiquated (from the 60s), basically a woman needs a doctors permission to get an abortion, in reality this isn't a problem with most doctors but it is demeaning.

There's a new law which just passed the first reading in parliament (with 80% voting yes) to remove any restrictions so thankfully this will no longer be an issue and a woman will be able to make the decision without having to go to a doctor.

So, while the laws are old it's actually positive that there's so much cross party support for progressive reform. Another law which is in it's second reading is euthanasia reform which has similar support.

Why is that?

> NZ is probably best place in the world.

Unless you, say, like to travel, or want to live in a place with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

> want to live in a place with people from a wide variety of backgrounds

Our largest city is also our most diverse.

> Auckland is one of the world's most culturally diverse cities with the fourth most foreign-born population, an international study has found. > With 39 per cent of its population born overseas, the city is revealed to be more diverse than Sydney, Los Angeles, London and even New York.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...

It's hard to define a good measure of diversity. Thankfully statisticians provide some options:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_index

For some reason, the article you linked made up their own (very poor) measure of diversity. Imagine a city that's half white locals, and half white British immigrants (temporary or permanent). Would you consider such a city as diverse? The measure in that news article would put this city as being 50% diverse, even higher than Wellington's 39%.

(Grew up in Auckland, live in London.) IMO it takes some pretty incredible redefinitions of the word "diverse" to get Auckland to be more diverse than London.

NZ's pretty diverse. South Island less so as it's mostly rural.

Depends where you want to travel to, Australia, South East Asia, the west coast of the Americas, and the Pacific islands are all very accessible. There's also plenty of travel to do within New Zealand, because New Zealand runs north to south and is roughly the height of Europe there's a huge variety within a small space.

Also, NZ is pretty diverse. I work in Wellington and my team of 20 is from nine different countries and ethnicities, there's only four born Kiwi's in it (and the Kiwi's have different ethnicities as well some are Maori, others are Pakeha, and others are Indian Kiwis). I read about immigration statistics the other day and 8 of the top ten ethnicities which are granted permanent residents status are from Asia, the Pacific, and Africa, only two are from countries with a European majority (the UK and the US). I find Wellington to be more diverse than when I worked in San Francisco or London.

Last year we moved to place a bit outside city. Previously, waking up on weekends meant planning a hike somewhere. Now we are just like "hey it's pretty nice just to chill here, lets just stay home". Sure, travel is more about discovering something new, but from beauty side, it sometimes even annoys me how pretty NZ is.

Culture wise, I keep saying NZ is like 50s in US - tons of new expats, everyone with decent background, keen to work hard. Most of Europe and US has now second generation foreigners which is not that interesting. Simple number: software teams I worked on only had 10-30% of kiwi's.

Isn't NZ part of the five eyes?

It is; and they railroaded Kim Dotcom, breaking all their laws on due process, just to lick those sweet, sweet US boots.

As a Kiwi Expat, I beg to differ. Australia takes that title.

Better incomes, quality of living (houses are vastly better quality), infrastructure, entertainment, and weather.

Better salary and better entertainment. I gain first one by working remote, second don't care that much.

The downsides is extreme weather, too big cities and much less nice people (historical backgrounds between kiwis and aussies are polar opposites).

Germany, Switzerland and Austria are competing for that title. (And there are official numbers backing that up). You get what you pay for.

> is the US anything admirable lately?

Nope, the US is firmly in the Wants a Prize for Basic Decency[0] category. Which is better than most other places, but that says more about other places than the US.

0: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WantsAPrizeForBa...

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