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Comment by gjsman-1000 | Hacker News Reader

Correct me if I'm wrong here, and maybe this is too charged for HN, but looking over at you guys from the US:

The US has problems (don't get me wrong, look at our politics, enough said); but the UK seems to be speedrunning a collapse. The NHS having patients dying in hallways; Rotherham back in the popular mind; a bad economy even by EU standards; a massive talent exodus (as documented even on HN regarding hardware engineers); a military in the news for being too run down to even help Ukraine; and most relevant to this story - the government increasingly acting in every way like it is extremely paranoid of the citizens.

Any personal thoughts?

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There's a lethargy, but it's hardly speedrunning. Things will be the same or slightly worse in a decade. I'm not sure I can say the same for the US, it seems different this time.

> The NHS having patients dying in hallways

Sadly routine in winter. Nobody wants to spend the money to fix this. Well, the public want the money spent, but they do not want it raised in taxes.

> Rotherham back in the popular mind

The original events were between 1997 and 2013. The reason they're back in the mind is the newspapers want to keep them there to maintain islamophobia. Other incidents (more recently Glasgow grooming gangs) aren't used for that purpose.

> a bad economy even by EU standards

Average by EU standards. But stagnant, yes.

> the government increasingly acting in every way like it is extremely paranoid of the citizens.

They've been like this my entire life. Arguably it was a bit worse until the IRA ceasefire. Certainly the security services have been pushing anti-encryption for at least three decades.

Yes - that is my impression as well as someone currently living in London. Literally ever single system that I have to interact with seems to be somewhere on the spectrum between barely functioning and complete disfunctionality, with almost very few exceptions that come to mind. By system in this context I mean every institution, service provider, company, business... everything. Couple that with low salaries across the board - including the "high paying tech jobs in London" with price increases that are out of control with no reason to believe this is ever going to stop you end up with a standard of living significantly lower than let's say for example the EU countries of Eastern Europe. Currently trying to figure out where to go next

Well Albanians apparently want to live in Norwich, leading to a bizarre anti-propaganda campaign with bleak black-and-white photography to convince them it's horrible.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c99n0x4r17mo

Probably your money would go futher in Albania, and they've got a cool flag, but the devil's in the details.

I was referring to EU [European Union] countries. Albania is not in the EU so I am not sure what the point of your comment was besides trolling

It isn't? Huh, you're right, a lot of the Balkans aren't, I did not know that.

I don't think anywhere in the EU really describes itself as Eastern Europe, though. That's Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova. So really just Romania, sometimes.

Literally quite a significant number of EU countries describe themselves as Eastern European, what you said is factually wrong. At this point I am considering your replies as either trolling or interacting in bad faith.

Can't I just be incorrect?

For my education, which countries?

I'm an immigrant to the UK. I have lived here permanently for 21 successive years, though I was actually in and out of the UK for years before that. My current anecdotal feeling about the UK is at a pretty low point.

If it was an option, I would seriously look to emigrate again, but I honestly don't know where. The most appealing option for me is Australia, but my age works against me. I know everywhere has its issues, but I'm just so worn down by the horrible adversarial political system and gutter press in the UK right now. We seem unable to do anything of note recently. A train line connecting not very much of the UK has cost so much money, and in the end it hasn't even joined up the important part.

I don't know, life is good at a local level. I am privileged and live in a fantastically beautiful town, and life here is safe and friendly. If I ignored everything else for a while it would probably do me good.

Australia is hardly any better. E.g. it forces software engineers to try to sneak backdoors into the software they're working on.

Imagine hiring someone you didn't know had an Australian dual citizenship and two years later all your customers' data is leaked onto the net.

Australian law explicitly prohibits requests that have someone "implement or build a systemic weaknesses, or a systemic vulnerability, into a form of electronic protection" - including any request to "implement or build a new decryption capability", anything which would "render systematic methods of authentication or encryption less effective", anything aimed at one person but could "jeopardise the security or any information held by another person", anything which "creates a material risk that otherwise secure information can be accessed by an unauthorised third party".

This UK request as reported would not be legal in Australia.

Since 2018:

> Technical Capability Notices (TCNs): TCNs are orders that require a company to build new capabilities that assist law enforcement agencies in accessing encrypted data. The Attorney-General must approve a TCN by confirming it is reasonable, proportionate, practical, and technically feasible.

> It’s that final one that’s the real problem. The Australian government can force tech companies to build backdoors into their systems.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/09/australia-thr...

Yes. Since the 'Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018' which I was directly quoting from, and explicitly prohibits systemic backdoors.

That blog's own reference points this out:

> Regular use of encryption as electronic protection, such as online banking or shopping, is not of primary concern in the Act. To reinforce this, the Act includes safeguards between government and industry, such as restricting backdoors and decryption capabilities, preventing the creation of systemic weaknesses, and accessing communication without proper jurisdiction, warrants, or authorisations.

So I can only assume that the author is either too lazy to bother reading their own reference in full (let alone researching the topic of their blog), or is being knowingly dishonest.

Like most immigrants you were sold a lie. Enjoy.

Sorry? The UK has been an amazing place for me. It still is, when I focus locally, instead of being swept up by everything else.

Are you also an immigrant to the UK? I suggest you embrace it.

Seems like the US is trying to catch up, especially with the whole talent exodus thing and defunding of vital research funding.

Many people think like you. Western Europe in general has been destroyed by a certain ideology, and whoever can emigrate does emigrate.

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