The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide
verfassungsblog.de
verfassungsblog.de
I thought sharing strategies against authoritarianism would be as free speech, open discourse as it gets. Open discourse as promoted here on this site is among the first targets in any authoritarian society.
We tech people should be merit based — vuess which form of society prevents exactly this? Suddenly instead of appointing the manager of a nuclear plant based on merit, they are appointed based on their loyalty to the regime. This may have huge impact for us tech people.
I am aware that some in the US may see anti-authoritarianism as "partisan", but if you immediately think the people whose line you tow are meant when someone mentions how to deal with $BADTHING, the thing boiling your blood shouldn't be them mentioning $BADTHING, the thing boiling your blood should be that those whose line you tow got you to defend $BADTHING. And you know it is bad, because otherwise you wouldn't try to shoot the messenger.
Edit: If you disagree or think the flag is deserved, I'd be curious to hear your perspective
Wrt this comment and submission: Maybe people don't like their blood boiling here?
I suspect that people are not asking why it's flagged to understand why but rather stating that they disagree with the flagging, but I might be wrong...
As the guidelines say, comments about downvotes and flagging are to be avoided generally. I'm commenting because it's already flagged and only few will see the negative impact of my boring comment! I hope it leads some to more understanding and away from fear anyhow.
Given there are many questions about flagging by invested users, answering them would be indeed tedious!
But I do think discussion of this topic is relevant for our shared (hacker) culture and I explained why, so this isn't just questioning the flagging, it also offers a on topic thought.
And given the current times (not only in the US) this is a relevant topic for every citizen that wants to keep their society non-authoritarian and merit based.
There is a cost to having heated discussions on HN — but there is also a cost to not having them in some cases. I argue that this is one of those.
Rules are important and make this place what it is, but it is more important to act in the spirit of the rules than by the letter.
The guidelines for Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) state that they don't want "political" topics posted here, and prefer topics that "good hackers find interesting" and that foster constructive discourse.
These topics do tend to create a lot of low-signal posts and I think there's a certain contingent of HN users who flag for that reason. I think there are also a contingent of users who flag these topics because they are, to put it bluntly, trying to censor them for ideological reasons.
The latter group is beyond help. The former I think would do well to wake up to the state of the world and use the considerable reach of HN to wake others up.
"Good hackers" will be having considerably less interesting conversations under an authoritarian regime, and by that point it'll be too late.
He's worried HN will become a battlefield, and it will be, just like businesses and universities will also be a battlefield as people are coerced into supporting systems they don't believe in.
Where he's wrong is that once authoritarian regimes are done replacing societies enforcers with loyalists, such as the military and police officers, what comes next is sources that influence disobedient thought, and curiosity is fundamentally disobedient. Curiosity has no meaning without objective truth, and curiosity can't be practiced without questioning authority.
HN is oligarch owned and funded, so neutrality implicitly supports HN's patron.
dang has to make the choice all liberal people have to make (and curiosity is a very very liberal goal), and that's to participate in a system of loyalty towards PG and let HN be a place that implicitly supports this coup through inaction, or to dissent and instead support the value of curiosity in the long term, by letting hacker news be a platform that propagates dissenting news, rather than a platform that limits it and keeps the platforms users inside of the "approved" bubble of thought.
It's always easier to do nothing, and it's always hard to fight for a world you want to live in.
No political system exists without cercion, you just have to make sure the coercion serves a higher purpose, like curiosity, rather than a man.
On youtube there is also another video where he talks about making this video that I found more interesting than the video itself.
One of the more interesting points he made is that in order to get into power you generally have to be given that power, but to be given that power, you must show loyalty to the power structure. Loyality is corruption and corruption is loyalty, at least when that loyalty is to a person. So corruptibility/loyalty is intrinsically related to being in a position of power.
The summary of all of that is the only time good things happen is when you yourself get into a position of power and choose to use it for good, rather than for purely selfish reasons.
This is a gem! Thank you for sharing it.
It also ties in with Venkatesh's "Gervais Principle", where, as we ascend the corporate hierarchy, we see "losers" --> "clueless" --> "sociopaths".
The highest echelons of corporate structure are indeed occupied by the kinds of people who are comfortable swearing allegiance to the corporation itself, not to its customers, its employees, its founding values, or some "greater good for society". Thus do we arrive at a world where these corps are headed by people who truly believe in "maximizing shareholder value".
I think you're misreading his interpretation. The Sociopaths enter and exit at will by feigning loyalty and interest to the corporation but ultimately they're not loyal to the corporation -- just loyal enough to maneuver around the power structures. once those structures are no longer useful they either break them, or jump ship, as evidenced by one of the minor-character managers in The Office.
those actually loyal to the company itself are the Clueless, who stick around even when it is clear the company isn't looking out for them, the customers, or much of anything.
Here in Europe, we have had the UK and Italy actively pursuing rounding up migrants and deporting them to Ruanda/Albania until their claims are processed, and Australia has been doing this for decades now on Nauru and other places.
It isn't reasonable to expect countries to have a generous welfare system, accept all arrivals and exist on the same planet at the billion-odd people who live on a few dollars a day. Something has to give. I vote the welfare system but keep getting overruled; so one of the other two has to go. And we don't have the space tech to pick option 3.
For Germany, there is no legal way to enter the country if you're not caught by one of the larger dragnets (evacuation of personnel in Afghanistan, EU-wide assistance for Ukrainians and a few other rare international resettlement efforts). You are not able to apply for asylum outside of Germany, you cannot fly to Germany without a visa (the airline just won't take you as a passenger).
On paper yes you have the right to claim asylum. In practice, you have no way that doesn't make you commit at least one felony along the way.
People: [Let's go to Germany]
Germany: Get out.
People: How dare you round us up and deport us.
I know nearly nothing about German law, but I going by what you write if Germany doesn't make it legal to enter the country, then no surprise the people who try anyway run the risk of being deported. I have enormous sympathy for them, but the fact is Germany is famous for having a big welfare system. That means people can't just wander in.
Same in the US, you literally can't apply for asylum until you enter the country.
At least for America, many if not also the majority did just that... And then overstayed the time limit, which is a civil infraction in the same category as a parking ticket.
Republicans have proposed a special "come deport me" registry where not-signing-up is itself a felony, as a roundabout way to retroactively criminalize things.
'Budapest Pride should be held indoors for ‘child protection’, says Orbán official'
'Hungary tightens abortion access with listen to ‘foetal heartbeat’ rule'
I'm more interested in knowing if there are any glimmers of hope left in Hungary.
Absolutely. In my opinion, our lifeline is the EU, as much as Orban is a pain in the ass for them. I believe that as long as Hungary is part of such international organizations, and I'm counting the NATO here as well, Orban can't cross certain borders, or at least not without repercussions, and I believe that he doesn't want any, since his whole shtick is to capitalize on these relations. For example, the same developments would have been (are?) much more scarier in Turkiye, or Belarus.
According to propaganda, Orban is building a family-friendly place. This is proclaimed loudly in the media, and at points where you enter the country (like metal signs saying "Welcome to the family friendly Hungary").
These family values is the usual alt-right dogwhistle, however. Same as how it's used in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_values#Organizations . In reality, the systems that actually support families, healthcare and education, are more strained than ever, due to the gov increasing their responsibility, and underfunding them constantly.
Couples are pushed to marry and have children, by providing discounted loans for them, if they sign contracts that they will bear children. Up to three, the more children they sign up for, the higher the loan will be.
They have amended the hungarian constitution to say explicitly that the mother is a woman, and the father is a man. The particular part now reads: "Hungary protects the institution of marriage as a voluntary union between a man and a woman, and the family as the basis for the survival of the nation. The basis of the family relationship is marriage and the parent-child relationship. The mother is a woman, the father is a man."
"The West" and progressive societal values are actively framed as harmful propaganda that intends to destabilize the country. Values like supporting women and lgbt+, supporting investigative journalism, having a look on migration as anything other than "very harmful".
Abortion laws are strictened. They included things like the mother having to listen to the fetus' heartbeat, before agreeing to the abortion procedure. Frankly, I think this is so evil, that I have a very hard time not to write something that wishes active harm towards these people.
Doctors don't take women seriously, and are often hostile or degrading towards them. This is not a politically directed issue, rather the result of the previous 50-100 years of political climates. For example, a female friend of mine went to a regular checkup, where the PRIVATE, for-profit gynecologist asked her if she has children, and when she said that she doesn't, and that they don't plan to have children with her husband, the doctor recommended that she reconsider, and that he can organize it that she gets pregnant, despite what the husband wants.
Hungary has a significant Roma minority. Many of the Roma people live below the poverty line, and their relation to the Hungarian population, government and law enforcement is a systemic, centuries-old issue. The current government does exactly nothing for them, nor in the short term nor towards their long-term well-being, but uses public figures of their culture to signal their support and association, and buys their votes with cheap gestures right before the elections.
LGBT people, and issues are not just marginalized, but the movement is branded as something that actively destroys society. LGBT families are regarded as unfit to raise children, they can be life partners with some of the marriage benefits, but not in a recognized marriage, and the Pride parade has been floated as something to be outlawed just this year.
These are just from the top of my head, in 30 minutes. Please feel free to ask any follow-up questions or proof, or post clarifications and corrections, I'm sure there are mistakes, and I don't intend to have any, as the well-being of my fellows is dear to my heart. Thanks for reading.
He also did a reading of each chapter on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhZxrogyToZsllfRqQlly...
No, we aren't. We had a war about that.
In the wake of that war, we tried really hard to pretend otherwise. We made a "Pledge of Allegiance", which reminded us that we are "one nation indivisible".
And that lasted for a few decades. Then they literally divided that: "one nation, under God, indivisible". It deliberately excluded a lot of Americans who disagree about God, and obscured the meaning of the phrase.
The authoritarians are not an outside force, or a small minority. They are a huge fraction of the country who considers the rest of us Not Real Americans. We can't not be divided from them -- unless, perhaps, by joining them as authoritarians ourselves. If they'd even have us.
Having followed the news/social media for a while while also having read a lot about electric cars, this statement is true already. Most articles or posts about EVs “distort the truth, deny facts and blatantly lie”. Sometimes with some basic knowledge and math you can easily spot the flaws in the article, but the articles are often so drenched in emotion that it’s hard to keep rational.
Like I don't see too many of the items applying to classically authoritarian regimes like China.
Let's apply the guide's own advice:
> Always think critically, fact-check and point out the truth, expose ignorance with facts.
The guide after all is written by Eastern / Europeans, the people is getting expropriated the most by Trump, in January 2017, right as Trump got elected and the democratic "resistance" movement was all the range. (Surprisingly, Trump 2 is even more extreme, and no more talk of resistance).
Or maybe it’s more amazing it wasn’t six of them saying that.
One really lovely part is how this would permanently make every government contract more expensive, if they got their way. Just great.
The VP and Musk have both written recently about how the judiciary can't tell the executive branch what to do. I think Vance called it illegal. Regardless, law is meaningless if no one will enforce it.
I'm genuinely speechless.
Americans voted in someone that risked their whole 200+ years of democratic history knowingly? That would make it all even more absurd than it already is, risking a whole system of government, trust from international partners, respect from adversaries, the trade-off would never make any sense.
> The US is very far from authoritarianism, the institutions seem quite strong
Do they? They haven't even be put to test yet, the Congress is definitely not strong (there's no pushback from any voice of reason from the president's own party), the Supreme Court is voting 5-4 on matters that are almost blatantly unconstitutional. I'll agree that institutions are strong when enforcement of a decision completely adversarial to the current administration's goals is put to test and prevail. At this exact moment there's no sign that American institutions are anywhere near as strong as it was once thought.
The first (“Year 1 under an authoritarian regime”) is explicitly, and the rest also implicitly, about the transition from something loosely approximating a liberal democratic republic or Constutional monarchy to an authoritarian state; its not about surviving in an established authoritarian regime.
(Nazi Germany and Putin's Russia being the classical examples of democracies going authoritarian).
Maybe you are too US-centric (wouldn't be the first time that happened to someone from the US), but as someone from Central Europe I had to immediately think about Hungary — Trump is said to follow the Orban playbook, a mental line not only drawn by me, but also by the European Council for Foreign Relations: https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-orbanisation-of-america-hung...
Now China's regime is in power since 1949 and there was no democracy before. People who had the chance to enact the advice in the 50s are likely dead by now. So you literally criticized the article for not covering a thing they said in the introduction they are not covering.
Just a hint: critical thinking involves a step where you try to play the devils advocate and try to find all flaws with your own thinking. If you skip that step it means your goal isn't finding the truth, but finding a plausible counter-argument. This isn't critical thinking, it is contrarian thinking, so something that finds a point that could (to a non-critical audience) seem like a weakness of a thought, but doesn't hold water under close scrutiny. Good for use as an unfair rethorical tool, bad to establish good discourse.
Trump praises authoritarians, has said multiple things that showed he wanted to be one, uses authoritarian language and has done political things that square with being an authoritarian — he is a textbook authoritarian. No discussion needed at, all a spade is a spade. Whether it is still early authoritarianism is the interesting question.
Imagine having a special needs child about to lose assistance...
Right now America is going through the stages of grief. We are between Shock and Denial, many of us are in deep Depression. This is literally traumatizing if you are paying attention and understand what is going on.
People who want to resist this are going to end up dead or in jail and that's a truth that's very hard to accept.
Also there's the greater problem. Leave to where? America isn't exceptional. What can happen here can happen in other places. Canada, France, the UK, and Germany are all struggling with far right movements, none of them have a clear answer for fighting oligarchy, they are only reluctantly taking America's warning for how bad it can be. America is generally a fairly well educated country, and if we can't pull off a return to democracy here, I don't see democracy rising anywhere else, just the opposite, I would expect rampant nationalism and resource protection.
So Europe might have better data protection laws, but I'm not sure that prevents A/B testing algorithmic feeds, and I think France tried to tax the rich and they just moved out.
In terms of position, velocity, and acceleration, Europe has a clearly better position, arguably the same velocity (towards nationalism/right wing), and it's very hard to tell the level of acceleration, but America's blunder definitely gave other countries a momentary reprieve.
So there is nothing structurally preventing Europe from the same fate, if you think so, that's just exceptionalism... Exceptionalism feels good when others are doing poorly, but it doesn't in any way prevent you from the same fate.
People ran away from despotism to America, but those people were unable to fight despotism in their own countries. If everyone runs, then there will be no place left to run.
And what if the new place develops it's own problems? Wander the globe forever in hopes of finding a magical place?
If your roomate shits in your living room, "you should move out" is the second to last choice. The last choice is stay and live with it. The first and second choices in undecided order are correct the offenders behavior or make them leave.
It's a flawed worldview that made Americans end up with dysfunctional politicians, because you reward ideological rhetoric more than real, pragmatic long-term planing.
Even for "authoritarian regime", that'd be a horrible way to run a country.
It's not like the democrats aren't full of oligarchs themselves, like the likes of Pelosi.
But, you're wrong, he is wrong for that reason.
> He's bad because he's completely mismanaging the country
He's also wrong for that reason, which is also not completely unrelated to the former reason.
> and putting oligarchs in charge of the government.
And for thet reason, which is mostly a rephrasing and slightly more specific form of the first reason.
> Even for "authoritarian regime", that'd be a horrible way to run a country.
Actually, its pretty typical of authoritarian regimes to (1) have a narrow elite (oligarchs) making decisions with no effective accountability for their own benefit, and (2) for this to, from any other perspective but the immediate perceived self-interest of those decision-makers to be complete mismanagement. (It’s also pretty typical for it to be mismanagement from any reasonable view of the elites actual interests, and paranoia driven by fear of being displaced either by outsiders or other members of the elite leads to suboptimal elite decision-making, because authoritarianism does not support conflict resolution processes that enable trust, and makes losing intra-elite disputes very high stakes.)
Sure the Pope and the catholic clergy were corrupt, but they weren't bad because they're catholics or authoritarian. Corruption was the issue, not catholicism itself nor authoritarianism. To think so is to force a narrative.
“Authoritarian” isn't, and isn’t analogous to, a religious denomination like “Catholic" or “Protestant”.
> Corruption was the issue, not catholicism itself nor authoritarianism
“Authoritarian” as a descriptor is more like “corrupt” than it is like “Catholic”. Not that the claim that being Catholic—or, for those positively inclined toward Catholicism, Protestant or Muslim or Secular Humanist or Satanist (Church of Satan) or Satanist (The Satanic Temple)—is not bad in and of itself is an uncontroversial pillar on which to rest an analogy,
What I mean is there is absolutely room somewhere between the current situation (examples from Norway) where:
- every road end up costing more than in comparable countries because no decision is final and everyone has a say
- school problems because teachers are not allowed to act, even in clear cases of abuse
- police have no tools against people under 14
but the solution is absolutely not to give politicians (or bureaucrats) unlimited power, bring back harsh physical punishment in school and turning a blind eye towards police violence.
In my understanding the problem seems to be that of polarization (examples sourced more globally):
- Why do I have to choose between 1. people who deny that trans people exist and 2. people who think that it isn't a problem when one inmate gets another inmate pregnant in a women's only prison? Or in sports, were womens sports, were people who were male athletes who never had a chance can transition and easily win as women? There certainly is a lot of room between these options.
- or why do I have to choose between 1. people who hate certain groups of people and 2. people who think it is OK when others arrive here and openly abuse our hospitality? Why did it take years to expel an internationally wanted terrorist?
List goes on.
And how often has the latter actually happened? That is part of the polarization issue: absolute nothingburgers are blown way out of proportion or outright manufactured as a "strawman" strategy. Besides, the threat for women in prison aren't fellow trans inmates, it is guards whose power is completely unchecked in prison.
> Or in sports, were womens sports, were people who were male athletes who never had a chance can transition and easily win as women?
"Easily" is not the word I'd describe. An actual transition is very risky and taxing on the body, being on 'roids or whatever is more comfortable than that from what I hear.
In any case, segregation of men and women in sports is a relatively new thing in history, dating back to around 1920-ish when the first bans for women appeared under the guise of "protecting their health / modesty". Plain and simple, men were afraid that women were just as competitive as they were, most sports are skill sports and not brute-strength sports.
Additionally, what even makes a man and a woman? Simply nailing it down to penises and vaginas doesn't cut it, there's quite a ton of different hormonal disorders that give you an XX person presenting as a man or an XY person presenting as a woman. Often enough that's only caught when they grow up to be adults and discover they're infertile because everything else "just works". And then come all the other examples in the spectrum between the poles. Where does one want to draw the line?
The more sensible thing is to rank athletes on other metrics: body weight and body fat/muscle distribution, age, or skill level like chess (mostly) does.
> - or why do I have to choose between 1. people who hate certain groups of people and 2. people who think it is OK when others arrive here and openly abuse our hospitality?
It's not OK but JFC there is no 100% foolproof system that allows for no cheating like the anti-migrant crowd tends to suggest. No matter what there will always be a certain percentage of fraud in any system.
> Why did it take years to expel an internationally wanted terrorist?
Dunno about this specific case since it lacks context, but everyone has the right to due process, including non white people.
> There certainly is a lot of room between these options.
Yeah, not to even engage in discussions with people who just want to cause pain and drama and manufacture problems. A lot of that is manufactured by Russia or other enemies anyway - turns out "think of the children" can be modernized to "think of the women", it's a perfect wedge issue since it is very hard to argue against the emotional message with facts.
[1] https://daily.jstor.org/gender-incommensurability-in-sports/
Often enough to demonstrate that incarcerating males in women's prisons on the basis of self-declared "gender identity" is harmful policy that needs to be removed and cancelled everywhere it's been implemented.
It's worth keeping in mind that the reason we have sex-segregated prisons in the first place is because mixed-sex prisons were so demonstrably harmful to female inmates, who were subjected to physical violence, sexual assault, rape, impregnation by male prisoners.
> In any case, segregation of men and women in sports is a relatively new thing in history, dating back to around 1920-ish when the first bans for women appeared under the guise of "protecting their health / modesty". Plain and simple, men were afraid that women were just as competitive as they were, most sports are skill sports and not brute-strength sports.
You are confusing two separate things here: access to competitive sports, and having a separate female category in competitive sports. The former was denied to women for the same reasons that women were denied access to many aspects of society that men could freely enjoy. Whereas the latter - eliminating male physical advantage from competition - is necessary for fairness and, in the case of contact sports, for safety.
> Where does one want to draw the line?
Evidence-based policy approaches typically draw the line at the male physical advantage of testosterone-driven development.
So for example a male athlete with CAIS (complete insensitivity to androgens) may be permitted to compete in the women's category because testosterone was entirely ineffective from development in utereo onwards.
Whereas a male athlete with 5-ARD (impaired conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone) won't be, as the phenotype of micropenis and less facial hair doesn't eliminate the male physical advantage in sport.
The problem then are male prisoners, are they not? In fact, trans women are 13 times more likely to be assaulted in prison [1] than cis-male ones.
The solution is obvious - more guards in prison, segregate prisoners with a violence or sexual assault history, and maybe imprison less people in the first place because many prisons are plain and simple overcrowded.
> Whereas the latter - eliminating male physical advantage from competition - is necessary for fairness and, in the case of contact sports, for safety.
Regarding the safety aspect in contact sports - I think the better solution is to leave that decision to the women themselves, but generally I'd more argue to ban or seriously restrict contact sports because a looot of them have had very nasty links to brain injuries uncovered.
> Evidence-based policy approaches typically draw the line at the male physical advantage of testosterone-driven development.
The question remains: do we really want to require athletes to submit to full-blown genetic and hormonal assays? Do we really want to require minor athletes to submit to genital examinations for no medical reason? The obsession a lot of people have with genitalia is absurd.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/23/us/trans-women-incarcerat...
Regarding the female category of sports, a sample of cells taken via a cheek swab can be used for karyotype testing, which would be sufficient for screening female athletes. This is much less intrusive than the anti-doping tests - which involve having blood taken and being observed urinating - that for many athletes is a requirement to compete. In the unusual case that the athlete has something other than 46,XX sex chromosomes, further analysis could be done - with the athlete's permission - to understand the underlying condition and, from this, determine eligibility to compete in this category.
No-one is advocating for all female athletes, including children, to undergo genital inspections. It isn't necessary and it's not being asked for.
Exact amount of times it happen doesn't matter as much as the fact that one side tries to pretend it isn't a problem.
> there is no 100% foolproof system that allows for no cheating like the anti-migrant crowd tends to suggest. No matter what there will always be a certain percentage of fraud in any system.
That is not what I am suggesting.
And I think you are actually proving my point here.
I'm not saying it is not a problem at all - I am simply saying that it is a nothingburger compared to the amount of "ordinary" rape and violence going on in prisons. Trying to blast on trans people while ignoring the much larger elephant in the room is dishonest and reminds me of a Bible quote: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" [1]
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%207%3A3...
Pretending I only care about one thing and then pointing out that it is stupid to only care about one thing?
It's referred to as a "strawman argument" because it's like arguing with a person made out of straw (evoking images of a person fighting against a straw man for training); such a person is not a difficult opponent and one is not required to put in effort for a fight against them. One might consider who you are arguing against when you say "one side tries to pretend it isn't a problem".
Article describes what is happening in my home country. I'm not American. What seems more American is that all these articles are being flagged here in true spirit of American free speech: where everything is technically allowed, but in practice, there is lot of censure and self-censure.
1) authoritarian regime takes your guns and ability to defend yourself
2) it will criminalise normal behavior, so it can prosecute anyone at will (everyone has to break laws)
3) it tries to destroy family
An authoritarian leader will tell you those things are under threat and that only they can protect them, to create a feeling of threat that will persuade the gullible to give up their freedom.
This point is nonsense, most authoritarian regimes do exactly the opposite, they promote traditional family values. Take for example the regimes of Putin, Hitler, Orban.
Curious to see how this is going to go in the US where they repress the poorest and least educated right to vote, while at the same time making it super easy for those same people to buy guns and ammunition.