We don't need oppressive regimes to "realize" they're oppressive. We simply need to shift the incentives by making it financially expensive to censor. This is known as "collateral freedom"[1], and has been used to publish censored content in China.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom

This is a bloodless equivalent of using human shields or hiding your forces in a hospital - you involve lots of innocent civilians in hope that the government will not be willing to absorb the sacrifice.

Saying "we can't stop you from blockading, but we won't help you build regime-monitored passages through the blockade" is not sacrificing anyone.

To quote from the comment I replied to:

> We simply need to shift the incentives by making it financially expensive to censor. This is known as "collateral freedom"

In this context, "making it financially expensive" means "banning us would also mean banning lots of other unrelated services, which will have negative impact on both economy and morale of the population".

In the same way, in warfare, using civilians as human shields is "shifting incentives", making it PR-expensive to strike you down.

In both cases, an authoritarian government may be willing to eat the loss and deal with you anyway. And in both cases, you're the one putting innocent people in harm's way.

The adversary is going to shoot down all packets that don't have certain labels on them.

Refusing to put those labels on packets is not putting anyone in harm's way. It's a refusal to help them treat certain classes above others.

In your strategy you only have three choices - put your own label, put someone else's label, or just give up. The labels are necessary for routing. If you put someone else's label on your packets, you're turning them into a potential target.

> I'm guessing you haven't spent much time looking into how oppressive regimes work.

> They aren't going "to realize that they are being an oppressive regime" and have an epiphone where they realize, "Hey maybe I'm an evil dictator?"

Not to mention that, in a truly oppressive regime, people don't have the liberty to either move or protest.

They might not have reasonable freedom to move or protest, but people will always have the radical freedom to oppose an oppressive regime. It is just much more costly and requires the knowledge that you live in an oppressive regime and access to information in order to break it.

> After reading that you will completely understand why "see how long it is until they protest or move" is a silly thing to say.

I wonder if you could give TL;DR on this, assuming there is something else than the basic prisoner's dilemma going on?

I'd be happy to give a very brief TL;DR with the disclaimer that I recommend either the book for a full picture or the Michael Malice interview on Joe Rogan's podcast (WARNING: NSFW language) [1]

There are a few factors involved (and please bear in mind I'm leaving out a lot of detail here, and this is nowhere near a comprehensive list).

1. There is extensive "brainwashing" regarding the great leader. He is praised for everything. There's a famous story about a western optometrist that performs surgery routine every where else in the world, but rare in N Korea that restores eye sight. The first thing people often do after receiving their sight is not thank the doctor, but to praise a poster of the great leader, thanking him for restoring their sight (I think this was a Nat Geo thing but I don't remember exactly).

2. There is a culture of tattling that heavily incentivizes ratting out your friends and family to the authorities. You will be punished for even having unclean thoughts, let alone taking bad actions. The pervasiveness of this makes it such that people often self-report themselves for thought crimes due to feelings of guilt or concern over getting turned in by friends/family (you may do less time in the prison camp for self-reporting).

3. Families are harshly punished for actions taken by their family members. This means that if you escape, your family will be likely killed or sent to prison camp. If you die in camp, your son/daughter/father/mother will have to take your place to finish your sentence. Thus even suicide/death in prison camp is a betrayal of your family. There is no way out.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B_idqiEoUE

Number 1 was in a Nat Geo documentary with an Asian American presenter (Lucy something?). Something like "Inside North Korea.

IIRC you couldn't tell if they were genuinely thanking the Dear Leader or putting on a show for the secret police.

Thank you. I think I will add the book on my reading list.

There is a difference when people have never had access to things and when you take away access.

A difference would be like America and North Korea and taking away the internet. The vast majority of Americans use the internet and it is an integral part to their lives. You take it away and they would riot in a heartbeat. On the other hand if you have a regime where the majority of people never had access to the internet (or any whatever), taking it away does not cause a riot. The small groups of people that had access won't have the critical mass needed to cause such a riot.

The point is not to make a dictator to realize "Hey, maybe I'm the baddie" but "If I take this away then someone will stage a coup." Dictatorships tend not to be very stable regimes. It is hard to balance the line of power and being overthrown.

TLDR: People care much more when you remove something that is already integral to their life. Not so much if it isn't.

> You take it away and they would riot in a heartbeat.

I'm not certain that this is true.

No American Dictator would just outright ban the internet, no they'd say they were protecting children and blocking terrorists, and require internet providers to block that content.

Anyone arguing that this is censorship would be branded as a supporter of child pornography and terrorists.

A few more steps along that line and what you have is no longer the internet as we know it, but PatriotNet(tm) (insert waving flag, anthem, etc).

Do it enough subtle steps and they'd get away with it without anything more than a few grumpy "libtards" complaining on TV.

You're right in that it can be done through a long process. But as freedomben notes (in response to my reply), Egypt is an example of what I'm talking about.

There's definitely some truth to this. In Egypt for example, the internet shutdown backfired massively. Good thoughts, thanks for sharing.