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Comment by vconnor | Hacker News Reader

Ah, the marvels of modern democracy. No serious way to enact change, politicians still do whatever the hell they want, and we still believe that voting for someone else will change things.

It’ll soon be like the UK, that if you campaign against this kinda stuff, the party in power publicly calls you a paedophile. Because only people with something to hide want privacy.

Privacy is a losing proposition. Governments have the perfect trojan horse (child safety) so it’s only a matter of time before massive surveillance is the norm.

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it effects lots of organizations. the left contingent of the PCUSA basically did the same for a decade to change rules. When they finally got the language passed it caused a large rift.

The difference is that one is not obligated to be part of a presbytery and can leave. The presbytery doesn't have guns.

No serious way to enact change? That's not true at all.

How exactly are you going to repeal ChatControl or ProtectEU when the same people who lobbied for these proposals/laws are the ones who would have to repeal it? Ursula survived a no confidence vote just a month ago.

It's not over yet. We can still fight it.

I don't think democracy is perfect, especially in this case. But I come from a very regulated country, and have lived in countries with far less regulation. The comfort that comes knowing that my food is somewhat safe to eat, that I have access to healthcare, that most workers have good working condition with lots of holiday. This all came from regulation and democracy, and it's great. I don't think mistrust of institutions and democracy is the way to go.

It's not over but sorry - they have lost all my trust. With governments like these who needs enemies?

There's absolutely reason to lose faith in the system, I'm just as guilty of that. At the same time, it has helped me to know that in many parts of the world there's been slides into authoritarianism, and in cases where there's been strong push-back its been possible to reverse it. It's when there's no push back that it becomes worse.

Objectively, it's still possible to fight it and democracy is still a good venture for making improvements.

Applied modern democracy and theoretical democracy are two different things. But yes, we should strive to get to a better version of democracy. Instead of just saying democracy BAD.

The problem is once trust gets too high, government powers get abused and then we get shit like chat control. Which is not democratical. Over time, less trust should bring government back under control and the cycle repeats. Hopefully. If democratical feedback process still works.

Of course it’s nicer to live where you can trust your government to represent your interests. But blind trust just because mistrust is not nice is one of the worst options.

the western democracy was lost not with trump/farage etc but with the entrenched liberals who decried democracy redefining it as populism and institutional entrenchment as true democracy. This is fallout from it. The populist movements happened because the liberals who once stood for working class people abandoned the poor and working class. Nobody cared then and some even mocked the working class. Now everyone here/reddit/etc cares because suddenly they are affected and its an issue that they identify with and not just the working class. Good times. You won't be able to do anything. They will walk all over you just like when they walked all over the working class.

People don’t want change.

If really someone gets the power who wants to change things they fight them too.

People want that everything stays the same. Problem is climate change and other problems make change inevitable.

People don’t want change, yet politicians are pushing sleazy changes left and right.

Change like straws ban and attached caps? Such change, wow.

That are alibi changes because the real necessary changes are too unpopular

Then don’t do any changes. Such BS changes are counter-productive and just a waste of resources.

>Then don’t do any changes. Such BS changes

So there are changes

People both do and don't want change. Not all change is good and some (most really) should be fought.

> Problem is climate change and other problems make change inevitable.

That's a convenient argument for people who want to push unpopular changes.

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