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Comment by TheAmazingIdiot | Hacker News Reader

So.. Now the Japanese find willing VPN providers in Russia and/or China?

Nobody can trust their own government these days. Especially if said laws concern copyright laws.

Not to get political, meta, or both, but it always intrigues me when people talk about "trust" in the context of third parties, most especially government. Government is made up of people, not unlike yourself, and those people are suceptible to the same personal pressures as anyone else. To imply that "government" should be trusted on its face also implies that the individuals that make up government should be similarly trusted. I don't think you'd agree with the later, so I don't understand why you're astonished that the former turns out to be untrue.

People, and the entities they comprise, earn trust by virtue of what they do. No more, no less.

You can have a system of governance where even though an individual cannot be trusted by themselves, it is more likely to trust the system given that a larger group of people have to make the decision together. (in fact most governments are setup like that, which is why the US government for example is more trustworthy than a dictatorship).

In the case of copyright law, the individuals voting might truly think they are doing the right thing for the economy, as not all politicians are corrupt (or so I'd like to think).

When you look at a bill like SOPA, there's no reasonable conclusion other than the majority is corrupt or the majority is willing to vote on something they do not understand. Both situations are fairly disturbing.

SOPA did not get passed, so it's reasonable to argue it's a sign that the system works.

The fact that a massive Internet backlash was required is a sign that the system is broken.

Yes, this is exactly how I feel. The law was horrible, but it had a majority. The only explanation is that the legislators are voting about something they don't understand or are flat-out corrupt.

The fact that SOPA wasn't passed after Wikipedia closed down in protest doesn't comfort me, because they'll still attempt to and be able to pass increasingly restrictive laws. The entire internet won't rally against every one.

Out of the Enlightenment period, there came about what scholars called enlightened absolutism; its meaning was often simplified into a short but accurate phrase: "Tout pour le peuple, rien par le peuple" (in French), or "Todo para el pueblo, pero sin el pueblo" (in Spanish).

I'm not aware of how much of it is taught in English, but the translation is roughly "Everything for the people, without the people's consent". The point of this phrase is that the governments/monarchies said they would act to protect their own people, apparently in good faith, but they only acted to protect themselves and the majority in power.

To directly address your point, those in government do not have "the same personal pressures as anyone else". Why? Because they are entrusted with representing an entire population.

It will be interesting to see what happens when/if things like this become more widespread.

How will the internet backbone cope if 90% of the traffic is being routed via China/Russia?

No need, you can find great seedboxes in Europe that do everything you need. My personal favorite is FeralHosting[0].

0: https://www.feralhosting.com/pricing

Unfortunately they say little about who they are...

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