| ▲ | chii 4 days ago |
| > I see why governments think they are doing this to protect the people. they're not doing this to protect people, they're doing this to ensure there cannot be rebellion against unpopular policies. Organization is harder if all communications is monitored. But this is how gov't get to be kept in check - the risk of "rebellion". If this risk is removed, you get authoritarian states - see north korea. |
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| ▲ | 9dev 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| I know its satisfying to think of the government as some singular nefarious entity, but the reality is far worse: There is no one in charge. It’s chaos all the way down. |
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| ▲ | cjbgkagh 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There are a few people in charge, they just don’t advertise the fact. Similar how the ‘Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence’. These both appear correct to the vast majority of people because of the Pareto distribution of outcomes, the vast majority of people experience the incompetence / no-one in charge and don’t experience the relatively tiny number of events when the competent malevolent people in charge do make their decisions. Consider if you were hosting the Jekyll Island meeting, how many people of what caliber would you invite to be there? And that’s just one of the meetings we know about. Another good one is the involvement of Bohemian Grove in selecting Ronald Regan to run for president. Their motto, "Weaving spiders come not here", like many institutions, describes the opposite of what actually happens there. | | |
| ▲ | KronisLV 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence I feel like this needs updating, sometimes it is greed, other times it also very much is malice, sometimes making those appear as incompetence or just "complex circumstances" is beneficial. Like how you have a culture war in the US while the rich rob you blind. How you have the "us vs them" politics while checks and balances are dismantled (including accurate reporting on science), alongside social support programs. How around 2020 companies rose prices across the board while claiming supply chain issues, just for those prices to never really come down. Same with the global DRAM manufacturing and the effects across the board on RAM, GPUs and storage - the companies just don't give a shit about consumers, they are choosing this. Also how the housing market is completely unreasonable. Same with US trying to break up EU and increasingly siding with Russia. Sometimes there's just malice or greed, even when it's not just a small group of shady people in a dark room, but rather entire social groups whose interests and ideologies just happen to align. A lot of people aren't even trying to serve the greater society in the slightest, the prevailing attitude increasingly seems to be "fuck you, I got mine". It doesn't seem entirely new, though, since the whole millennial generation largely got saddled with that economy by those who came before, what's going on is just a bit more open now. Also using US as a good example here, but obviously similar issues are on the rise in Europe as well and elsewhere. | |
| ▲ | 9dev 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, that's what I was getting at. Thinking "they" are in charge is actually very widespread, with varying opinions on who "they" actually are—whether it's billionaires for you, the Rothschild's for others, or Reptilians for some. How great it would be to have a select few evil masterminds, a clear enemy to roil against! That isn't reality, though. Would the super-secret council of puppet masters have allowed Trump to become president of the USA (again) and ruin the economy? You'll have an answer to that, obviously. It matters little. Reality is far more complex, shadow masters prefer stability over chaos, and the world is generally full of competing and opposing interests. A few rich men might hold a lot of power in their hands, I give you that; but unless you limit "the world" to mean an arbitrary smaller region of earth, nobody is in charge of it all. | | |
| ▲ | coliveira 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You're confusing control with total control. Nobody has total control, even the most powerful and rich entities. This doesn't mean, however, that a lot of the policies we see being enacted by governments have not been discussed and promoted by a small number of people in very high positions of economic and political power. You're trying to disprove this well known and easily attested fact with the straw man of total control. | |
| ▲ | cjbgkagh 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | 9dev 4 days ago | parent [-] | | So it is the Zionists for you. I should have guessed so. | | |
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| ▲ | parineum 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Consider if you were hosting the Jekyll Island meeting, how many people of what caliber would you invite to be there? And that’s just one of the meetings we know about. Another good one is the involvement of Bohemian Grove in selecting Ronald Regan to run for president. Their motto, "Weaving spiders come not here", like many institutions, describes the opposite of what actually happens there. That's some pretty classic conspiracy theory stuff. No evidence of anything nefarious, just heavily implied. |
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| ▲ | taylorius 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | No need for a formal command structure when everyone's interests point in the same direction. Self organisation will occur readily enough. |
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| ▲ | hnlmorg 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” is more apt. I think what’s happening isn’t some evil plot to quell opposing voices, but more likely the UK government thinking they’re actually passing laws to reduce rioting and online abuse. And the censorship effects are a side effect of these laws. Some might consider this opinion naive but take this counterpoint: laws require a majority to pass. So if these censorship laws were written to squash opposing voices, then we’d be dealing with a literal conspiracy involving hundreds of people. I don’t believe all politicians are only in it for themselves (though I do believe many are), so you’d expect at least 1 MP to speak out if such a conspiracy existed. |
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| ▲ | coderenegade 4 days ago | parent [-] | | This. Governments are signatory to a huge number of agreements, and are members of various NGOs. Things start out as being representative of some will of the people, but over time it becomes a millstone around the government's neck if it the arrangement becomes politically difficult at home. And of course, those arrangements often morph to be to the benefit of those in charge. What happens is that you get arrangements like the EU demanding migration quotas that the populations of various individual countries despise, or an automobile market that gets progressively more expensive as environmental legislation puts ever more pressure on manufacturers. And of course, if you're saving the world, who needs cars anyway? We should all be living Hong Kong style to save the environment, so we need more urban density. |
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| ▲ | hexbin010 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > they're not doing this to protect people, they're doing this to ensure there cannot be rebellion against unpopular policies Yup. There is a huge amount of resentment about handouts for pensioners, a lot of disagreement with any kind of new 'islamophobia law', anger about actual and perceived reneging on pre-election promises, still a lot of anti asylum-seeker sentiment, anger about grooming/rape gangs etc. And Labour are worried about Reform making big gains again in local elections next year. |
