the big irony, of course, is that i'm much more comfortable with China surveilling me than the US, since the latter can throw me in jail, seize my assets, and ruin my family's life, while the former cannot.
> it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.
leeoniya didn't say anything about democracy. The practical reality is that regardless of what forms of government are involved, whichever government has the ability to arrest you is the government which is the greatest threat in your day-to-day life.
> government has the ability to arrest you is the government which is the greatest threat in your day-to-day life
Assuming every government is the same, which I'm not so sure about. I rather be arrested by the German government than the US government, mainly because I don't want to disappear to black site and be made to disappear for years while I'm t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶d̶ receiving enhanced discussion techniques. At least I know I'll be treated relatively OK by Germany, while my fear is pretty much the opposite from a lot of other governments out there.
Wrong. The American government is much better than the Russian government, but the Russian government cannot arrest me while the American government can, therefore the American government is a much more serious threat to me than the Russian government. No equivalence between the two governments is assumed or implied.
"The government that has the ability to arrest you" is the one that controls the police on the street you live on. Not some abstract commentary on which government is best at arresting people.
I've already placed my bets that current president will be the first to serve at least three terms since the two-term limit was introduced. Judging by what's happening, seems like a safer and safer bet every day.
I think the most likely reason that won't happen is some sort of cardiovascular failure (heart attack or stroke), not because anyone will actually stop the Republicans otherwise trying. Conservatives want a monarchy.
Shitty bet tbqh, but it's your money. Trump promises his supporters much but delivers very little. If J6 is the sort of insurrection his base can muster, there's no chance in hell of him getting another term.
He has said that he cannot do more than two terms, but also there are ways to do more terms. Then he said it's too early to think about, then that he is joking, then that he wasn't joking, then that he isn't looking into it, but that they're "probably entitled to another four after that" (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-trump-has-said-about-pursu...), whatever the fuck that means.
Ultimately, I don't think it matters much what he says or has said, he won't clearly say what he/they are planning, obviously.
> Ultimately, I don't think it matters much what he says or has said, he won't clearly say what he/they are planning, obviously.
Honestly they're pretty open about their plans. They laid most of them out in Project 2025. They just sometimes carry out those plans while also denying that they are following the playbook. Trump in particular will be surprisingly candid about what he's doing in between bouts of lies and denials.
Like he said he didn't know anything about project 2025?
Steve Bannon is the one working on this, has said they have a plan to do it. Trump himself seems to believe that if the country is at war elections are postponed because that is how it works in Ukraine. Ergo Venezuela.
It’s not anti-democratic, it’s simply a matter of exposure. China can WANT to do whatever they want to me, but I have no assets in China, no trade in China, and neither me nor anyone close to me will ever go to China. So it simply matters a lot less what China has on me than the country where I have friends, loved ones, financial assets, property, and frequently visit.
Generally I'd agree. The threats here are larger. That said China isn't powerless to hurt you either. I haven't seen much of it happening, but in theory China could blackmail you. They can manipulate and influence you and your children through social media and advertising, even encouraging kids to harm themselves/others.
They can also fill the products they make for us with heavy metals and other poisons while building them to break draining our finances and filling our country with trash. The worst thing they could do though is just stop producing crap for us entirely since we're basically dependent on them for just about everything.
And the united states can also do those things. We’ve been fighting against the hormone-filled milk for decades, and half of the ingredients are banned by smarter countries, but more than half of our food is still imported poison.
But none of that has to do with who is surveilling me online.
Yes the US is a democracy, but a lot of our systems suck ass and are also close in proximity. You DO NOT want to get into legal trouble in the US. Our justice system is beyond fucked. If there's one way to permanently ruin your life in the US, it's getting into legal trouble. You're better off smoking crack cocaine, that's probably healthier for your livelihood.
I don't know about China's legal system, but even assuming it's more fucked, it's all the way over there. Not here.
The main trouble with Flock and companies like them is that they attach to our broken systems like a tumor. If the system fails, which it often does, these accelerate it and make it worse. If you get falsely accused of something or piss off the wrong PD, this shit can ruin your life. Permanently and expeditiously.
Even if you are the most Moral Orel you should be skeptical of these crime reduction claims. They don't just beat down crime, they beat down regular people, too. And if you ask them, they don't know the difference.
> I don't know about China's legal system, but even assuming it's more fucked, it's all the way over there. Not here.
You're saying that the US legal system is extremely bad, shouldn't the assumption be that other countries have it better? I don't know much about either country's legal systems, but I do know that if I feel like my country is extremely bad at something, other countries probably do it better, at least that what I'll assume until I see evidence of something else.
I don't see how it matters how other countries rank vs the one a person lives in. Even if Canada's legal system is better than the US, you can't choose to subject yourself to the Canadian legal system without extricating yourself from the US first.
Maybe, I mostly gave that disclaimer to say that it actually doesn't matter much. Even if it's worse, that's still better, because it's over there.
But yes, generally, I assume virtually every developed country (and some of the kind of developed countries) have a more just and competent legal system than the US.
The US is an interesting beast, because when you compare it to the entire world on a bunch of stuff, it doesn't seem so bad. But when you compare to countries that have, like, clean running water, then it really falls flat in a lot of ways. This allows apologists to basically justify anything the US does, because somebody, somewhere, is doing it much worse. Hey guys, look at Uganda, they're genociding gay people!
Not being an expert in every single country's legal system, I would guess that the USA's is about middle of the spectrum in terms of badness/fairness/justice.
These things are hard to weigh objectively. For instance, in America the police don't take bribes, you can't bribe your way out of a traffic ticket. The cops will laugh at your attempt and pile on more charges. But if you're a local business owner, the bribes to local politicians are far from unheard of and all manner of corrupt dealings between business and local government is prevalent. So how you rank America's corruption depends on how you weigh those two forms of corruption. There's not one single objectively correct way to do that.
> For instance, in America the police don't take bribes, you can't bribe your way out of a traffic ticket. The cops will laugh at your attempt and pile on more charges.
Sure, they might not take as many bribes as South American police tends to take (as someone who traveled that continent in car without a driving license, I'd say 90% are accepting of bribes for minor crimes), but American police also accept bribes from time to time. They'll laugh at you and pile on more charges if you offer too little, but even American police has a price.
FY 2024 has 229 "Number of Bribery Offenses" (https://www.ussc.gov/research/quick-facts/bribery), which obviously doesn't account for the bribing that no one noticed or where there wasn't enough proof, we could probably assume it's at least 50% higher than that if we're being charitable, but in reality that number is probably way higher, by magnitudes.
I don't see anything about cops in that link. What I do see is that public officials were 49% of those charged but 45% were high-level elected officials. So that's what, maybe 4% that might be cops?
In Mexico, cops will pull people over just to collect chump change cash bribes. In America, you have people like Epstein bribing state attorney generals, but nobody even thinks to slip a cop a $100 bill with their drivers license. This sort of casual everyday roadside bribery does not exist in America.
> but nobody even thinks to slip a cop a $100 bill with their drivers license. This sort of casual everyday roadside bribery does not exist in America.
Obviously incorrect for both Southern and middle states in America. But sure, go on believing the US cops are somehow immune to corruption, which is something I never thought someone would honestly believe, even on the internet.
If you ever decide to visit America and learn what it's like firsthand, I encourage you to try this. Just make sure you know a good orthodontist first, and probably a good therapist too, because you're going to get thrown to the ground, handcuffed and sent to jail. There is no world in which trying to bribe your way out of an American traffic ticket makes more sense than just taking and paying the ticket. Even trying this is genuinely one of the stupidest things you could ever do.
Maybe it isn't the US government we need to worry about. What's stopping Flock from compiling and selling personal dossiers on every citizen like all the other big tech companies? They're just a private company so nothing to worry about, right?
the big irony, of course, is that i'm much more comfortable with China surveilling me than the US, since the latter can throw me in jail, seize my assets, and ruin my family's life, while the former cannot.