Hacker News Reader

Comment by mnd999 | Hacker News Reader

Need to vote these clowns out asap.

The opposition party have stated that they think the Online Safety Bill is too weak, and they would make it even stronger (more draconian)

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/01/labour-pl...

NGO’s are also very much in favor. and so is much of the population. like in continental Europe, they don’t see the internet as we do on HN.

Populations do seem to lack critical thinking overall.

But this is probably just because everyone can be an expert (or even just "knowledgeable enough") in maybe one or two things, and have to rely on not-necessarily-trustworthy sources on all other topics.

This averages out to "the wind blows in the direction that the majority of the media says it blows".

And I don't know if that is a solvable problem. Not without a radically different style of government.

I really feel how apt, but also defeatist, this quote is:

"Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

i have a much simpler theory: we kind of forgot how to manage both sides of an argument. we take sides because it's much easier than deeply understanding the issue and fixing it at it's core.

Even some HNers I know are in favour. You don’t hate children do you? DO YOU?

Strange they don’t see how bad this is… and what an excuse terrorism and ‘the children’ are for blanket surveillance.

Someone replied to me on a different discussion of this topic with a very astute point, paraphrasing:

9 out of 10 people seem to prefer to catch and punish a pedo than pay higher taxes to fund actual child and family support services that actually, actively protect children from violence, hunger, drug abuse, and, depressingly, all the rest of the shit that gathers at the bottom end of humanity.

Maybe not 9 out of 10, but I'd guess at least a majority, which is still a fucking sad state of affairs.

On the other hand though, that could just be because actual, active child protection doesn't enter into political discussion of internet surveillance. So that's what we need to inject into the conversation to make "then" understand that there are more angles to view this from.

In the USA it is quite obvious that somewhere above 30% to below 40% have a strong punitive idea. I also know many people that speak in liberal terms but act in a punitive fashion in actual relations.

The issues are complex and it is easy to miss what the implementation of an idea looks like.

I see many comments by HNers that some developers feel entitled to information simply to make their application development easier or more MBA business plan friendly. I see them siting business reasons as the higher ideal that must be served.

So there are at least 2 positions I have seen that are anti privacy.

1.Think of the children 2.the data is needed for business reasons

By these clowns you surely mean both the Tories and Labour then! They’re all pretty into this (from what I’ve heard though I hope I’m wrong!)

Politicians ultimately want to stay in power. They support it because they think it will bring them votes.

Bu voting them out you send the message that this is not the case and their views will change.

Labour are the opposition power, they are likely to come into power next year and are more centre left and wanting to tighten up even more laws.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com