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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

I never thought of UK as a police state. How about Netherlands w a similar program? Non watchlist plates are kept for 28 days compared to most flock implementations that keep for 7

https://www.politie.nl/informatie/waar-staan-anpr-cameras.ht...

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Uk has been widely know as a budding police state for years. V for Vendetta was written in the 80s partially as a commentary on the British states turn towards a police state.

This poster is from 2002:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/po...

And right after seeing those posters you’d see big ads on the Tube walls that says things like:

>>We have the name and address of everyone in the UK without a TV license. Inspectors on on their way now to your home to investigate.

Also lookup “TV detector vans” which is another hilarious bit of the theatre of the UK police state

Seeing that as someone visiting the UK on vacation was a real eye opener, like what the heck kind of police state is this

I always thought of the UK and London especially as most tightly monitored city on the planet. By far.

Why not? The UK has been a police state for decades. They have a long history of mass surveillance and of cracking down on protests.

The funny thing is that countries commonly called “police states” aren’t, while countries not thought of as such are.

Most Western countries have 2-3 times as many police officers per capita as China and Russia. Many people in China have had not a single encounter with authorities in their lifetime (other than basic administrative tasks).

Meanwhile, in some EU countries, you need government approval to add a roof window to your own house, and you better believe there are inspectors and fines enforcing that.

Not at all true of your average Chinese. Remember, the Great Leap Forward and it's enormous famine and death and violent social upheaval is all within living memory. A few small pockets of the country had only minimal starving thanks to local authorities that quietly disobeyed Mao's directives and managed to 'fly under the radar' so to speak, but outside of those areas virtually everyone was touched in one way or another. Most of them are also extremely aware and very effected by the modern day rural/urban birth location apartheid, where if you're born outside of certain areas you can move to others -- but your kids will get 2nd-rate (if any) education, you won't get health care, etc.

And that's not to even speak of your lived experience if you're an ethnic minority in China. Tibetans don't self-immolate out of boredom.

Can't speak about Russia, the Russians I know personally all left before the Putin era really got going and isn't reflective of the current state of affairs over there, but what you said is the opposite of truth regarding China.

By “police state” people generally mean one where day to day behavior, speech, and thought are tightly controlled by the government. Not so much police per capita or building codes.

We can debate whether the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that rooftop windows don’t make house fires dramatically more dangerous, but I don’t think there’s much debate to be had about whether it should be a crime to own a picture of a man standing in front of a tank.

> By “police state” people generally mean one where day to day behavior, speech, and thought are tightly controlled by the government.

That describes most Western countries today.

Yes, instead the UK and Europe “debank” and sanction opposition journalists so that they can’t continue functioning, without so much as a public hearing and with no way to contest it.

Not sure which is worse, actually. At least everyone in China knew that you shouldn’t mention June 4th. When there’s a clear line, you can avoid it or use indirect references to make your point.

Western countries are richer per capita, they can afford more government per capita.

Higher yields mean more overhead for taxes. More overhead more taxes means more money for the lord. More money for the lord means more men at arm. More men at arms means more ability to shake down the peasants for even more.

It's a self feeding cycle, well until you get out competed by the next country that didn't waste all that overhead trying to enforce a local maximum.

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