The huge ideological change that has occurred in the west in the last 10 years will be a mark in history.

When it seemed that we were constantly advancing towards more freedom, something in people's mind snapped, we stopped and then we started walking back in the opposite direction, towards more state control.

How much of this change can be attributed to social media?

I'd say 9/11 was part of it, if not the start. And post-9/11 measures being the only 'normal' the youth today have ever known makes it less likely that demand for a return to normal will ever manifest.

I don’t think this has much to do with 9/11. I would recommend reading Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay’s Cynical Theories. There’s a long trail of development that stems back well before the early 2000s.

The worst of it is that many of the people pushing for this tragic regression call themselves progressive

freedom is not a trademark of the West. the world one hundred years from now could be very different.

That is pretty draconian. How would that even be enforced without sweeping violations of privacy? At some point you are no longer asking what topics are offensive, but rather what topics are safe.

> At some point you are no longer asking what topics are offensive, but rather what topics are safe.

Isn't that the point of the thought and speech policing we're seeing lately?

The movie Demolition Man has predicted this future with social distancing and (for movie purposes) automating fines for speech. The only thing missing is every restaurant being a Taco Bell.

Pizza Hut.

You're aware that there are two cuts of the movie? The US version was Taco Bell, and the international version was Pizza Hut. Both are owned by Yum Brands.

I had no idea there were two cuts. Pizza Hut is a good choice too :)

Alexa, google home, siri, they already subpoena the recordings for criminal cases.

Children / partner / friends could record / live stream from in the home.

Huh? The article is about an actual bill and actual things a politician said. I understand you might think the bill and politician are stupid, but I can't fathom why you think it shouldn't be reported on. Isn't reporting on it exactly how that stupidity can be called out?

Maybe it's worth reading after all.

Cool it with the hateful remarks... before the cops come.

Woah man. Do you have a license for that free thinking?

There's very little substance in your reply. Why so dismissive? Especially if you didn't read it.

Isn't this exactly the plot of some Orwell story or something? The children are encouraged to report their parents' thoughtcrimes to the party. I'm actually serious.

Not just a story. This was everyday life in the Soviet Union, East Germany, etc. not so long ago. And probably still in many repressive countries today.

Here's a story from the East German era... In East Germany it was illegal to watch Western TV, but it was possible because the West deliberately had strong transmitters aimed at the East. There was a tradition that the evening news began by showing a big clock ticking for a few seconds with a chime on the hour that started the broadcast. People used to set their wall clocks and watches to this. On the West's channel this clock was round, on the East's it was square. So in East Germany they asked children in school to draw the clock they saw on television, and if it was the wrong shape their family would get a visit from the Stasi.

Why was this flagged submission flagged??

To suppress it and those who would criticize it.

Europe's speech laws are pretty terrible. It's one big advantage of living in the US: speech has serious legal protection.

It goes too much the other way IMO. One can peddle lies, half-truths,threats, bigotry and falsehoods and hide behind the banner of free speech.

I used to think so when I was younger, but boy was I wrong. No, freedom of speech to speak what you believe, right or wrong is worth not being subject to despotic control over your person, your thoughts.

It's a pretty binary thing though, with a little bit of gray area. Either you can speak your mind or you can't. I think the USA has a better take on it than Europe. Europe certainly Trumps us in health care and respect for science though and not being tricked as much by religious "leaders"

Hate is somewhat subjective in some area's - it is only when it clearly leads to actions that impact others unfairly, does it become more clear cut. Otherwise it can open a Pandora box of interpretations.

For example: Is the Scottish word Sassenach offensive, as an English person I can laugh and appreciate it, others may not and take offence. Equally in today's society it is easy to take offence and that right there is how they class a hate-crime in some circles - if you offend somebody and by that, they take offence even if no offence was meant nor intended.

This is so fucked up I don't even know what to say. Maybe that's good, god forbid it'd be hateful.

I would be willing to put my life at risk to fight against this sort of totalitarianism. History has come to that plenty of times before.

This is ridiculous. I highly doubt it would withstand review by any Judge who also knows the law. It won't last long. This is the same thing that leads to tyrannical governments like in China, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

It is interesting how little people understand history and how this has been the norm over the millenia. These things happened in Babylon and in Persia thereafter. It happened in Rome and Greece. It happened in 7th century Arabia and continues to today. It happened in the 15th Spain until the 19th century. It happened in Europe in the early 20th century. It happened in Russia from the early to late 20th century. It happened in the USA in the mid 20th century. It has happened in China since the early 20th century. It is happening now in all sorts of countries throughout the world today. These are just a small selection of this problem happening at various times and in various places throughout history.

The warnings about this have been know for a long, long time and it requires vigilance on the part of the citizens of every nation to play their part in protecting the freedoms one has.

Unfortunately, there are far too many who get all too easily offended and are all too easily lead into fear by whatever leadership exists in their respective countries.

We have no resilience in our populations today.

"These things happened... this problem... the warnings about this"

What specifically happened? What is the commonality that you see?

People who gain power and then use that power to dominate others, especially with violence.

Article is login-walled, so I’ve only read the first few paragraphs. For clarity, what actually happened here? I’m unsure whether a new bill is being discussed that says this explicitly, or a _suggested_ interpretation of a bill by a lawmaker, or a _legal_ interpretation of a bill by a judge/magistrate. Those would all have different implications.

> Article is login-walled

You can read it here: https://archive.is/XkLQ3

It appears to be a paraphrase of a quote by Scotland's justice secretary. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the paywall either, and what there is is incredibly vague.

FWIW I found a link to the site with the actual bill - https://beta.parliament.scot/bills/hate-crime-and-public-ord...

The Public Order Act 1986 has an exception:

> It is a defence if you are inside a dwelling and had no reason to believe the the words or behaviour used would cause or would be heard or seen a person outside.

I believe the argument being made in the reading of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill is essentially that you can still commit a hate crime in private. Which seems fairly obvious —assuming you subscribe to the notion of hate crimes— but never expect the Times to see things with that sort of resolution.

Wow. This is incredible. How on earth do people believe they have the right to tell people how to think and what to say in their domicile?

It used to be a funny parody or satire we used to assign to despotic fascist or communist regimes... but has this come back to bite us.

I'm not espousing hate speech. I wish people were civil and pleasant but that's not reality and we also disagree on what is hate (depending on perspective) --but this crime bill is beyond the pale. It's draconian. I'm not even sure China goes to this extent unless it's anti-government speech.

People don't know what they are doing to themselves.

This is right up there with communist states having husbands, wives and children rat on each other plainly to weaken citizens and strengthen the government.

Yes Scarfolk used to be a great dystopian humour outlet - today it seems more and more like a training manual for government.

https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/search/label/thought%20crime

> I'm not even sure China goes to this extent unless it's anti-government speech.

How would you know? Wouldn't there be survivorship bias?

The fact that this is even in serious consideration and not completely laughable shows how far the overton window has shifted on policing speech.

My fear is that we can't go the other direction, back to sanity, when it's gone this far.

Weird how almost no-one has read the article, nor the bill, but this thread is full of comments about how terrible this new law is. (It's not a law yet, it hasn't been passed).

Lol. This was flagged within 1 hr. Talk about irony man...

It's natural since a number of the people on HN are the very people programming the tools used to spy on us and enforce these laws.

Is there a non-paywalled version?

From the little that's visible, Jimminy Cricket that's insane. Would that make anyone who refuses to wire up state-controlled microphones a criminal?

The law violates itself.