| ▲ | Zufriedenheit 5 hours ago |
| They claim to protect consumers and privacy and then push this creepy surveillance state. |
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| ▲ | pqtyw 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Well it's privacy from private companies. The government still needs to see everything you do just in case. Its not like you have anything to do hide? Do you? |
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| ▲ | pembrook 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I keep trying to explain to people that private companies harvesting your data, while not good, is done solely for the purpose of trying to get you to voluntarily buy more toilet bowl cleaner. Meanwhile, Governments can take away your freedom, block your right to speech, ruin your entire life, seize your private assets/wealth, take away your children, deport you, etc...all depending on how the cultural wind is blowing on a particular day. And they are legally entitled to hold a gun to your head or kill you if you don't comply. These are not the same level of risk. Yet more hysterical attention is paid to the former instead of the latter. This is dumb. Be more worried about governments. Read more history. | | |
| ▲ | wredcoll 32 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Your comment seems to frame this as a "two sides issue" as if it was a see-saw and you can only move back and forth between one side and the other with no room for nuance or alternate directions. Governments can do a lot of things that hurt you, this is a consequence of having power. Giant Corporations can also hurt you because they also have power. In general I would agree that say, walmart, is mostly interested in encouraging you to shop at their stores more frequently with the information they gather, it's also true that other corporations are currently selling the information they gather to the government. And, of course, if I dislike what e.g. the department of labour is doing with information it's collecting, I can vote for various representatives up and down the hierarchy of power, in the USA this would include things like state governors / attorneys, federal legislators, presidents, etc, all of whom have some level of influence over my information being collected and used. If I dislike what walmart is doing, my options are considerably more limited. I can lobby for a law to be passed against it or I can essentially wish for it to go out of business. | |
| ▲ | dinkleberg an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Exactly. And it is also incredibly short-sided and naive to push for more power for the government when you think it is just going to be used by "your side" for the issues you care about. When you want to wield those powers to promote your own ends against those you oppose, don't be surprised when those you oppose come into power and use those same powers back against you. | |
| ▲ | protocolture 43 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | >I keep trying to explain to people that private companies harvesting your data, while not good, is done solely for the purpose of trying to get you to voluntarily buy more toilet bowl cleaner. I keep trying to explain to people that any data companies harvest, for whatever purpose, can then be accessed by the government, and that trying to draw distinctions in what is a big massive ouroboros is irrelevant. Even if you trust the company AND trust the government, the data exists forever, and no one can trust all future governments and all future corporations. | | |
| ▲ | pembrook 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The root issue is still government having absurdly asymmetric power over you. If the government weren't legally able to use the toilet bowl cleaner companies data against you, it wouldn't matter. The problem is us giving governments the right to use this data against us (passports to access the internet, messages being under constant surveillance, etc.) In Europe we're happily handing over our rights every day so that governments have more power over us (supposedly to "protect" us from the big bad evil American tech companies). Except, Google just wants to make $100/yr off me instead of $50/yr by me voluntarily choosing to use them. Meanwhile, EU governments want to literally control what I think and feel and do, and take out $100,000 in debt on the backs of each of my children (we're at 115% debt-to-GDP in France) to fund this nightmare surveillance state. |
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| ▲ | petcat 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| At this point I think it's obvious that EU is in turmoil. They're struggling to come to grips with the idea of a Russian invasion on their eastern borders, and simultaneously USA pivoting to Asia and not willing to front their defense after 40+ years of imploring them to do so themselves. They've outsourced nearly every critical component of a large sustainable society to the rest of the world: Russia, USA, China, India. But at the same time, their politicians can't do anything because the minute they suggest that they might have to start cutting pensions and public welfare, and all of these different things in order to start supporting national industry and defense, they lose support immediately. |
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| ▲ | sdsdssweew213 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | EU has quite successfully decoupled from Russia already, we aren't heavily dependent on Russian energy or other natural resources anymore. Also, EU countries in Eastern Europe do already have a high military spending, and even Western European countries are improving. The situation is less than ideal but not hopeless. | | |
| ▲ | holoduke 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's hopeless. Enormous amounts of money is flowing out of Europe into China and the US. Europe has dogshit to offer. You already see it with gdp not growing. Whereas rest of the world did grow. Even Russia has higher GDP growth than Germany. Euro leadership is not smart. |
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| ▲ | coredev_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Whoa, where do you get your news from - Fox? | |
| ▲ | martimarkov 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Tell me you don’t know about a topic without telling me you don’t know. | | | |
| ▲ | pessimizer 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > They're struggling to come to grips with the idea of a Russian invasion on their eastern borders Or rather struggling to hold onto the fantasy of a Russian invasion on their Eastern borders, when Russia has spent 4 years in order to manage to hold on to a quarter of Ukraine, entirely filled with Russians. > But at the same time, their politicians can't do anything because the minute they suggest that they might have to start cutting pensions and public welfare, and all of these different things in order to start supporting national industry and defense, they lose support immediately. They don't have to do this [edit: spend excessively on defense], they can cut public spending somewhat and invest (and aid private investment), but the EU is too weak to do this. What they're hoping is that spending on arms can revive their economies. They deeply need a looming threat to convince member states to do this. They should instead make the EU a real federation with teeth (and a real central bank), or call it a day. The EU needs a proper way to get investment into technology, innovation and infrastructure, not to invade the east a third time (not that they're willing to spend the money on that either, no matter how hard they propagandize and censor.) The EU seems to spend most of its time threatening to regulate things that it has no ability to produce, and is also not investing in its future ability to produce. It seems doomed to continue to be a vassal of the US, or if it wises up just a little bit, a vassal of China. edit: Wolfgang Munchau can't stop banging this drum. The European upper-middle class is completely delusional (and up its own ass) in a way that makes even Americans look almost sane. European elites are just US pawns, while they feed these delusions with anti-American "fellow kids" rhetoric. edit2: Munchau example: https://unherd.com/2026/07/the-great-german-own-goal/ | | |
| ▲ | holoduke 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well the Americans are not particularly clean in this situation. For them it's all about creating a situation where Europe keeps buying overpriced weapons from the US to support Ukraine in their slow march to death. Most euro leaders have sold their souls to the devil and live in a bubble of illusions and wishful thinking. They are all employees of the the American system. You won't even make it to the selection level it you don't comply with their ideas and morals. The only way out of this is a new wave that ditches the US completely and start doing business with Russia and China on a massive scale. Not gonna happen though. | | |
| ▲ | petcat an hour ago | parent [-] | | Every American president since 1980 begged Europe and NATO to take responsibility and invest in is own security. |
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| ▲ | nenadg 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >everyone else is doing it so why miss out the opportunity |
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| ▲ | rvz 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| You are now finally realizing what a trojan horse is. |
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| ▲ | petcat 19 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You think USA is the Trojan Horse? Barak Obama said, in no uncertain terms, that Europe needed to mobilize and arm itself. But of course Europe just ignored that warning. Like it anyways has. |
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