Hacker News Reader

Comment by Lio | Hacker News Reader

I've met "pro surveillance" people before. There's a surprising number of "normies" in favour of it.

I remember being shocked, about 10 years ago, when I mentioned social network spying and my sister in law remarked she thought there should be more of it to keep people inline.

I've also met people who think all internet access should be through government sanctioned id and monitoring, which I also find shocking.

I haven't been able to pin this down to a single political view point, these people come from across the spectrum.

View on HN

I think it boils down to each individual's personal experience.

If you live surrounded by people who will hurt you, steal your stuff, or act in reckless ways if they think no one is watching; then pro-surveillance sounds more appealing.

If instead you feel that the people around you will behave even if no one is watching them; then privacy concerns take precedence.

I don't necessarily live in an area where I expect people around me to behave. Most people do and I have some good neighbors, but its also a rural area with a drug problem.

I also don't want surveillance to protect me though. Its my job to protect myself, and ideally to be part of a community that looks out for each other. It isn't the governments responsibility to protect me if said protection comes at the expense of my own freedoms.

I don't want to be a rat in a cage just so I can feel safe.

In the political alignment chart, authoritarianism falls on y axis, whereas left/right is x axis. This explains why you find people from both sides supporting it. They're essentially the same side as far as this topic is concerned.

I've often been annoyed by the left/right divide being spoken about as linear. Its always felt more circular to me, you go far enough to the led or the right and its hard to tell the two sides apart.

Authoritarianism as a second axis is interesting, though I don't know what the opposite would be. Communism, the actual idea with effectively no one in charge? If so, in practice those extremes seem to end up in the same place, one or a few people in charge of everyone else with a very tight grip on power.

I agree that extremists of all stripes are troublesome for various reasons. The sibling comment by `odo1242` already answers the y-axis question. I want to note that these are idealizations, and may not perfectly map to the parties labeling themselves as such.

> may not perfectly map to the parties labeling themselves as such.

Well that's for sure. In the US I don't see the Democratic as liberal, nor the Republican party as conservative based on policies they promote.

In the political compass, the two axes are liberal/conservative and authoritarian/libertarian. So it would be “libertarian”. This includes philosophies like anarcho-capitalism (bottom right) as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com