Must be a truly dangerous place...
https://web.archive.org/web/20100824175032/http://fitwatch.o...
I don't know if you're awaee, but the number of arrests for terrorism has skyrocketed in recent months, in the UK.
Sounds terrifying, until you realise people were arrested as terrorists for holding placards. (That fact is of course terrifying, but in a chilling way).
The cynic in me almost wonders if when it comes to re-election time, these increased numbers in terrorist charges will be trotted out and the context conveniently forgotten.
Terrorists (as well as their supporters) are intolerant and non-pluralist. Therefore, for a pluralist society to survive, it must be intolerant of one thing- intolerance.
I'd at least like to know who defines who is a "Pluralist" and who is a "Terrorist".
Also: The paradox of tolerance can legitimately be used to call intolerant behaviors of individuals. When you use it to define entire population groups as "intolerant", and therefore not worth of protection, you have joined the side that you ostensibly want to fight against.
> When you use it to define entire population groups as "intolerant"
There are suitable cases, eg. if you are in jihad or other extremist sect where part of ideology is intolerance
If you need exceptions, abandon the rule, because it is no longer a rule, it is just a discriminatingly applied proscription.
Suppose there was an organization that had written by-laws which were not permitted to be changed but which demanded adherence (on pain of death), including never leaving the organization. Also suppose that most of the members of that organization collectively decided not to adhere to all of its rules (some were considered incompatible with "progress")... but some continued to. And others sometimes began to, but only under stress, because the by-laws book (which, again, cannot be changed, on pain of death) made NO clarification on scope of application, and people were free to interpret the by-laws literally.
Why would you not judge that organization, given that its by-laws are its core? Why would you make special exceptions for ANY organization (or its members), here?
I mean, objectively-speaking, if we weren't reflexively defending the org we're of course discussing, it sounds like a dystopian science-fiction novel. (If I'm being honest, it sounds A LOT like Warhammer, actually.)
Here's a fun thing to read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naskh_(tafsir)
"With few exceptions, Islamic revelations do not state which Quranic verses or hadith have been abrogated, and Muslim exegetes and jurists have disagreed over which and how many hadith and verses of the Quran are recognized as abrogated, with estimates varying from less than ten to over 500."
Also note that naskh tends to recognize later passages as overriding earlier passages. Guess which ones are the more violent ones...
See a problem, yet? Please don't gaslight me into not seeing one.
"Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."
Sounds like speech suppression with force because (later in the quote) the speech may later give way to force. If he was only talking about force in response to force it wouldn't be considered a paradox I don't think. This quote hasn't dispeled popular characterizations of his stance for me, it seems in line with what most people say he's saying.
However, I think that, when most people use the word "intolerance" today, they include things like speaking racial slurs or expressing any negative emotion towards a demographic group. There are contexts in which these things are done, and manners in which they are done, in which, yes, they do give a significant signal that the speaker is the type who would cheerfully escalate to aggressive violence towards the targeted group; but also contexts and manners in which they do not give such a signal.
I think there is a distinction to be drawn here, between "always tracking whether this is likely to escalate to criminal action" and "just attacking anyone who vaguely resembles a known 'intolerant' group". The latter is essentially an autoimmune disorder, which has led to massive collateral damage and its own discrediting. The former ... has a danger of turning into the latter, certainly (which has an interestingly meta angle to it), but is there any version of it that is well-protected against that fate? I expect there's room for improvement compared to earlier versions. I don't know if it can be done well enough to be worthwhile.
If someone does not abode by the terms of the contract, they are not covered by it.
In other words, the intolerant are not following the rules of the social contract of mutual tolerance.
Since they have broken the terms of the contract, they are no longer covered by the contract, and their intolerance will NOT be tolerated.
Obligatory legal notice that I obviously do not support said group, but historically terrorists would actually need to commit acts that instil a sense terror in people to further their political objectives. N one I've spoken to feels even remotely terrorised by Palestine Action, and it wouldn't even make sense to be given what they stand for.
I say this as someone who neither supports Palestine Action or shares their concerns.
https://news.sky.com/story/prisoners-to-be-released-after-se...
Spraying paint down military jet engines rendering them inoperable until repaired, at a cos of millions of pounds.
> historically terrorists would actually need to commit acts that instil a sense terror in people to further their political objective
The legal definition of terrorism in the UK has for many years (at least all of the current century, I think a lot longer) included "serious damage to property":
https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/terrorism
and I think causing many millions of pounds worth of damage is clearly serious.
I do not entirely agree with the definition (I particularly oppose making collecting information and disseminating publications terrorism) but it is what has long been accepted.
The Terrorism Act 2000 gives "serious damage to property" as one definition of terrorism so I find it hard to argue that the government was doing anything more than neutrally applying the law here. Those protestors knew full well they were supporting a proscribed group and they were warned what the consequences would be. Protesting in support of Palestine remains entirely legal in the UK just as long as you don't use the name and branding of this one specific group.
I'll probably regret posting this but there are some extremely disingenuous half-truths in this thread and I think that readers should know the full context.
The UK has very broad terrorism legislation, but conventionally terrorism is something directed at civilians, and it's not something we usually tar, for example, resistance groups with.
I think you even have to be able to kill people in internal political conflict without being called a terrorist. There are many circumstances during which such things are necessary.
If the government wants to shut this group down (which I think is a reasonable response to an attack on our military) then I'm not sure what other options were available to them. And like I said, what they did seems to meet the legal definition of terrorism (regardless of whether that definition is a good one.)
Of all the arguments we could be having about Palestine, I'm really not going to shed any tears for Palestine Action.
But I'm not here to get lost in the weeds, I just objected to the misleading half-truths that were being presented above. Most people reading this don't follow UK news closely and might come away with the impression that the government is banning pro-Palestine protest entirely, or is making it illegal to merely "hold placards". That's an outrageous distortion, and it hardly helps the pro-Palestine cause. I couldn't let it slide.
Furthermore, I think that there is a duty, if one suspects that a capability is or may be used to aid genocide, to destroy that capability. Hopefully Palestine Action are incorrect, and targeting assets that have not been used to aid genocide or otherwise make it easier, but if they are right and the UK have actually aided genocide, then they have done too little violence.
Yet more false equivalence.
You can be for Palestine.
You can be for Hamas.
You can be against ethnic cleansing.
You can be against genocide.
These are all different things. And note, this smearing of things like equating 'genocide to Hamas so they deserve it' doesn't make genocide better.
This smearing terms together is also being done by Israel as well, by trying to equate Israel with Judaism, and all Jews across the world. And that any denouncing of actions done in a genocide or ethnic cleansing is somehow antisemitic.
All of these false equivalence arguments are basically just motte-and-bailey fallacies.
Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. Last elections too. For quite many, Hamas are freedom fighters defending against invaders.
I don't have anything else to nitpick about your comment! Just that one thing you said stuck out, because, no; being for Hamas is like being for the Khmer Rouge. Like, yeah, western imperialism in Indochina was absolutely a thing at the time of the Khmer Rouge. But no, you don't get to be for the Khmer Rouge!
("Last elections too"? What did you mean by that?)
This sort of thing, deploying facial recognition systems in the street in the hope of finding someone, is much more insidious. Technically you can choose to bypass it, or pull something over your face, but that's more or less guaranteeing that you'll be stopped and questioned as to why you're concerned about it.
Sadly the UK never met an authoritarian they didn't like (apart from Hitler, so long as you're not as bad as Hitler himself you're good though). When surveyed the British public will call for banning basically anything they don't like, even if it doesn't impact them at all.
But it's not you that decides that what you are doing is harmless. It's what the authorities decide; and that can be quite different from what you or other people deem "nothing to hide".
because who says the state (and the people acting for it, e.g. police) are always the good guys
there is a VERY long history of people being systematically harassed and persecuted for things which really shouldn't be an issue, and might not have been illegal either (but then the moment a state becomes the bad guy "illegal" loses meaning as doing the ethical right thing might now be illegal)
like just looking at the UK, they e.g. "thanked" Alan Turing for his war contributions by driving him into Suicide because he was gay
or how people through history have been frequently harassed for "just" not agreeing with the currently political fraction in power, and I really mean just not agreeing not trying to do anything to change it
and even if we ignore systematic stuff like that there has been also more then just a few cases of police officers abusing their power. Including cases like them stalking people, or them giving the address of people to radical groups, or blackmailing them for doing stuff which is legal but not publicly well perceived. (E.g. someone had sex with their wife on a balcony not visible from the street but visible from a surveillance camera).
And even if nothing of this applies to you, if there is no privacy and mass surveillance this can also help people in power to frame you for something you didn't do. Like e.g. to make you lose your job so their brother in law can get it instead.
and even ignoring all that you should have a right for privacy and since when is it okay to harass people which just want to defend their rights?
anyway if you think is through "I have nothing to hide" is such a ridiculous dump argument.
Well. Maybe[0].
> Over the past year, there have been a number of headline-grabbing legal changes in the US, such as the legalization of marijuana in CO and WA, as well as the legalization of same-sex marriage in a growing number of US states.
> As a majority of people in these states apparently favor these changes, advocates for the US democratic process cite these legal victories as examples of how the system can provide real freedoms to those who engage with it through lawful means. And it’s true, the bills did pass.
> What’s often overlooked, however, is that these legal victories would probably not have been possible without the ability to break the law.
Isn't that the CC in CCTV? Closed circuit implies that it's restricted to an on prem network
Per-capita it’s less than the US.
By the way, do anybody care what would happen (at least psychologically) in case of a massive blackout or cyber-incident?
Just imagine something akin to what happened to the Iberian peninsula a few months ago, the country goes into flame quickly preventing recovery and then it's on. Most of the systems the UK has to control its population are inoperable.
I am pretty sure it is in the back of the mind of the UK leaders when they negotiate with Russia and China....
For all the CCTV in London I've been mugged twice and nothing was captured on CCTV nor were the police all that interested in doing anything about it. As an outsider living here I think the UK has huge social problems that are neglected in favour of retaining classism. America has the same problems but at least it's more "ah, what can ya do about it huh" rather than "we are a perfect polite society British values bla bla".
no. you cannot. ever.
even if you have perfect faith in current government, you're one election away from something different.
CCTV is also extremely ineffective in crime prevention in general, and actually catching criminals - one of few studies(back when i did write my thesis on subject related to it) used different areas of UK to measure crime fighting capability and effect of CCTV - by finding similar areas with and without CCTV and comparing crime statistics.
they only worked on parking lots, there was no measurable differences in plazas, alleys, roads, highstreets etc.
and a bit of anecdotal evidence - once cameras at my older workplace caught robbery to a place next door. With criminal looking directly at the camera, before bashing the window with a brick, jumping in, and hopping out with accomplice. They never got caught. This was quite decent camera, with face clearly visible - i know this because we directly cooperated with police.
Both of them then rely on the next step after providing information, following the people who triggered the first layer with CCTV.
If I went into my local CBD right now, and comitted some badass crime. explode a cop car or something we all yearn to do. All the exits are covered. I wont get anywhere walking and covering my face. I can get on a train but the rozzers will know where I get off. Likewise, if I jump in a car, they can track it almost anywhere for the next 100 kilometers.
I dont think the goal is prevention, its the guaranteed catch. Its the body of evidence that starts piling up when you burn cop car 1.
When brisbane introduced the go card system, we had our first arrest based on go card travel data within a month.
Sad really.
>bit of anecdotal evidence - once cameras at my older workplace caught robbery to a place next door. With criminal looking directly at the camera, before bashing the window with a brick, jumping in, and hopping out with accomplice. They never got caught. This was quite decent camera, with face clearly visible - i know this because we directly cooperated with police.
I helped an employer comply like this once. Someone had been brutally killed by a driver. The victim only existed for like 3 frames on the recording. But the cop wasnt interested in that anyway. They had managed to sneak drugs out of their car, into their pocket and then hide them in our garden, mid arrest. Embarrasing for the cop you see. The cop already had the driver on vehicular manslaughter, but thanks to the power of CCTV, they could also add a charge for drug crimes.
It's human to help your friend because they're in need; that's how tribes work. But it's just as human to disparage or sabotage someone who isn't a part of your tribe, to not care about them. To lie and cheat and be corrupt.
As for police effectiveness; there are shady groups of people that hang out in dark alleys in some central London areas every single weekend. You need only walk around/down the wrong place to meet them. All it takes is sting operations where a plainclothes officer acts drunk and hits a "get 'em, boys" button to bring in the fuzz when they inevitably get attacked.
There are all sorts of socio-economic-political issues that contribute to all this, though. But the root problem is in the apathy of the general public, none of us care about anything unless it affects us personally.
You can kinda see that in some parts of the UK still, but certainly lack of staff really affects them; particularly when UK seems to have higher incidences of more violent crimes, more drug related crimes, etc. Turkish gangs shooting little girls in the middle of London.
Always been that way, always will be. It's just a little harder to bury your head in the sand than it used to be.
Nope. That's an ideology, not a statement of fact. It completely negates the possibility that systems can become corrupted (or simply fail) and no longer work towards their original purpose.
Er, that's exactly what "the purpose of a system is what it does" means.
https://www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/25365950.thames-valley-...
You need political will for this and for enforcement to take it seriously, since the technology to do so is almost trivial nowadays.
Governments break their own rules all the time, warrants get rubber-stamped, and “heavy fines + prison time” magically evaporate when the offenders are the state or its contractors. The technology isn’t the hard part - it’s the fact you can’t meaningfully enforce limits on a system whose entire purpose is to watch everyone, all the time. You don’t make mass surveillance safe by adding a padlock. You stop it by not building it.
The organized crime organizations just mostly focus on crime which mainly hurts immigrants and people racist police personal might not see as German even if they have a passport, and also mostly only crime which isn't publicly visible.
In turn a mixture of corrupt and racist police/politicians and having other more visible problems lead to there not being any large scale actions against them hence why they could grow to quite large size.
More than got away with it, actually... they prospered.
There has to be an incentive to not do these things as a government. There is none in the UK.
The only incentive governments ever have to not do bad shit is that the people will hate it so much that the government will wind up with less power than they started with.
But, decisions are ultimately made by individuals or small groups of them who have interest (profit, legacy, etc) in doing what the people wand and what is good for the people.
If enough people in government's personal interest is aligned with that of the people you get more outcomes that are aligned with the people.
Well, that's the trick, isn't it? You have to give people a way to reduce government's power if the government does something the people don't like, but do it in a way that keeps society from flying apart.
The best solution i can think of is constantly seeking to reduce the government and limit it's power, size and responsibilities, always trimming the hedge. I.E. conservatism. Any government fundementally should be trusted and relied upon as little as possible, if you want to prevent abuses.
Why would we work down the prosperity chain?
There's a pretty clear prosperity heirarchy in the world economy and the financing/services dominant economies are ahead of the manufacturing economies who are ahead of the ag/raw materials economies.
Yeah, industrialization has been important for China’s recent development just as it was for the US in the late 19th to early 20th centuries or for Britain a bit earlier. But it was important because it happened at a time when China was at a lower tier in the heirarchy.
But these said economies all seem to just focus on asset-buying. Hence the massive house inflation. They don't make anything. No production, only asset-accumulation. Building a Feudal Economy.
And participation in the service economy isn’t even open to everyone. In the UK, a working-class person can’t just start a small service business - IR35 and similar rules ensure they can’t make a profit. The rich have captured both the economy and policymaking, shifting into pure wealth extraction mode. Everything gets more expensive, ordinary people get poorer, and with no stake in production or ownership, there’s no one left to buy the services the “upper tier” depends on. Western capitalism is eating itself.
Drive through the metro areas of the Great Lakes and Great Plains states and tell me that's universally true.
There's a bump in prosperity for the people doing the financing and servicing in a given country. If you're not doing that, it's at best a wash. At worst it's turned otherwise sustainable communities into impoverished deathtraps.
This is very wrong, in the sense that not everyone can do "financing/services". Lots of people, even some on this website in fact, pretend that everyone can but it just isn't true. What financializing your economy does is exacerbate existing inequalities, or build new ones where they didn't exist.
It's also, ahem, a very bad idea to intentionally deconstruct your industrial base so you can make a couple bps every quarter. The reasons for this should be quite obvious, but since for many they apparently are not ... there are very real geopolitical tensions between PRC and the US, and these tensions present a very real possibility of war. Should that happen, PRC will have the ability to squeeze US supply chains in a very devastating way. This isn't to say it would provide them an easy path to victory, but just the ability to do this increases the probability that they would initiate a conflict in the first place. This is to say that there is no such thing as a "prosperity chain" that everyone should all strive to emulate.
However our society is now flooded with Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt campaigns that foreigners, terrorists, criminals, are out to get you.
This creates the dellusion that all these security companies are here to help and protect us. Really it's just politicians handing out tax money to private corporations (cronyism) for no improvement to security or life. But at least you'll tell yourself you feel safer because of it.
These disgusting corporations run by wealthy people want to make everything a TSA line, because they think you are cattle.
It means everyone suffers and your 4th Amendment is taken away (in US).
In the same way that moralizing karens create drug cartels rich off trafficking scared morons unable to think a few steps ahead create Peter Theils rich off building 1984.
Is that true, or first world just became older, not exactly safer?
Paranoia gets bigger every year. They are addicted to money and power.
they always had been or at least tried, for decades by now, the only thing which had been holding them back was the EU frequently being like "no wtf UK, that is against human rights, EU law, etc."
> Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things?
no, and it also has a long track record of not only marginally improving your crime statistics. And especially stuff like facial recognition vans are most times not used to protect citizens but to create lists for who attended demos and similar. Which is most useful for suppressing/harassing your citizens instead of protecting them.
And yet they are still pushing [0]
[0] https://edri.org/our-work/despite-warning-from-lawyers-eu-go...
Sure GDPR and what not, but they're full of loopholes for allowing government to do what private parties are not.
HN has terrible EU Derangement Syndrome:
any time its mentioned here, suddenly there are tens of people lining up to blindly shit on it, usually for laws it hasn't actually passed, or literal anti-truths like your comment, despite the fact that it is consistently passing the best tech-focused laws of any major governmental body anywhere, and the proposed laws that everyone repeatedly loses their minds over have never once actually come to pass. even when they released the DMA and DSA, possibly the two most HN-friendly pieces of legislation of all time, half the comments were attempts at criticism, basically seemingly because people here just love to hate the EU, sans facts
This is simply wrong:
They have banned _live_ facial recognition - and with exemptions such as e.g. for terrorism and other severe crimes, which is becoming quite broad.
They are allowing facial recognition when done after-the-fact for law enforcement. Probably also for petty crimes.
if you're going to change the central focus of your comment, do it in a reply not an edit
Here is an article about live/post facial recognition:
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-ai-facial-recognition-tec...
It would be nice if we removed the security guards for politicans, and if they're not doing bad stuff, they have nothing to fear.
Tell me, if this is a genocide, what has happened to all the Jews in Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan since 1950?
No, defense of Israel is the last stand of a people that has been slowly eradicated from their indigenous region for the last 80+ years.
Hamas simply needs to surrender in this round of the war they started. But they won't unless they control Jerusalem.
It can be 2 things.
>Hamas should unconditionally surrender but they prefer to put their children in harm's way than to surrender.
"Surrender" means leaving their kids with more of the same until the next flashpoint. Israel has orchestrated a no win scenario, and some people forced into that place have decided they would prefer violence now instead of later.
>what has happened to all the Jews in Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan since 1950?
Some have been forcibly removed. Some of those countries also worked with the zionists to relocate those people willingly to palestinian land.
>Hamas simply needs to surrender in this round of the war they started. But they won't unless they control Jerusalem.
"Hamas wont stop until they are in a better position to defend palestinians" isnt the amazing argument you might think it is.
Hamas has no interest in defending Palestinians much less peaceful coexistence [1]. Their primary goal is to conquer and destroy Israel for the glory of Islam.
> Ismail Haniyeh in 2020: He explained that Hamas rejects ceasefire agreements by which, “Gaza would become Singapore,” preferring to remain at war with Israel until a Palestinian state is established from the River to the Sea: “We cannot, in exchange for money or projects, give up Palestine and our weapons. We will not give up the resistance... We will not recognize Israel, Palestine must stretch from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.”
Truth is that there was a population exchange between Jews and Arabs after the 1948 war between their nations similar to what happened between Greece and Turkey in 1924 and several other regions during the 20th century. It’s tragic but those peoples accepted it and now largely live in peace. I believe many Gazans desire peace with Israel [3].
However instead of accepting reality, Hamas official policy is the destruction of Israel and the Jews [2].
1: https://www.adl.org/resources/article/hamas-its-own-words 2: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp 3: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_Strip_anti-Hamas_p...
Right, which is why I wouldnt ascribe to them the goal of creating a Palestinian state. They might say they want it, but it isnt really the result they are looking for. The comment I was responding to was making them look good.
>Truth is that there was a population exchange between Jews and Arabs after the 1948 war between their nations similar to what happened between Greece and Turkey in 1924 and several other regions during the 20th century. It’s tragic but those peoples accepted it and now largely live in peace. I believe many Gazans desire peace with Israel [3].
The majority of Gazans would be happy if Israel just respected their right to return. Israel could simply let all the gas out of the issue immediately. Send the settlers home, and let the victims of the nakba return to their land. I dont think anyone desires "peace" where peace is living in a giant open air prison subject to raids and interference from an external military.
>However instead of accepting reality, Hamas official policy is the destruction of Israel and the Jews [2].
Exactly. They perfectly mirror the zionist terrorists who fought for the establishment of Israel. And look where that got us. Israel being ruled and directed by those terrorists has created the current crisis. We cannot repeat that mistake and simply leave Hamas in charge of Palestine. But likewise the terrorist state of Israel must also be either reformed or replaced.
Sure and Greeks would love to have Constantinople back. Greece attacked Turkey to get Thrace back and failed. Most of the Greeks living there were expelled. Sucks but that’s war and conflict.
Yet we see that Greeks and Turks don’t suicide bomb each other daily to regain some lost historic sense of pride. They accepted their Diaspora, not kept them locked up as political pawns like the Arab countries did with Palestinians.
Statements like yours sound nice on the surface but are ignorant of practical realities and the messiness of the history.
Even by your own logic, after all, Israeli Jews are just exercising their “right of return” no?
> Israel could simply let all the gas out of the issue immediately. Send the settlers home, and let the victims of the nakba return to their land.
That would not work. You see what Hamas is willing and was able to do on Oct 7th. If Israel allowed that they’d likely be facing the same as Oct 7th continually.
The Arabs that remained after the Nakba are full Israeli citizens now. It’s not perfect but to my eyes living next to several Palestinian Israelis they have pretty good lives. Much better than in Jordan actually.
> They perfectly mirror the zionist terrorists who fought for the establishment of Israel. And look where that got us. Israel being ruled and directed by those terrorists has created the current crisis.
Atrocities were committed by both Arabs and Jews prior to 1948. Again you have a very slanted and inaccurate “white colonizers bad” of the history.
When two ethnicities begin fighting it’s very difficult for either side to remain docile. Naturally populations that once lived together will separate. I’m not justifying it, just pointing out the reality of the matter.
Even the British prior to 1948 proposed forced resettlement of Jews and Arabs in the region to reduce tensions and fighting. Both sides had terrorist elements. Your post minimizes and ignores that both sides were guilty.
Israel being formed just forced the issue and after all the surrounding Arab nations attacked them. Every other situation like that in recent history has had refugees leave or flee their homelands. Most have been allowed to resettle and make new lives, unlike the Palestinians.
Unlike the Palestinian governments, Israel has already given citizenship to remaining Arabs and proved they can live peacefully with their minorities. They grant the right to vote. They protect places of worship for all faiths. They’re not perfect but far better than how the Arab peoples and nations treat Jewish minorities pretty much anywhere in the Middle East.
I did a study abroad in Israel when they withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Most Israelis were supportive of it and removing illegal settlers in Gaza, yet it was a political battle against their own extremist elements. Yet despite doing that it only took a couple years before the rockets started coming from Gaza.
No. There are surviving people with a clear right to return they were removed from. Its those people that Israel seeks to outlive by holding them in Gaza. Its happening now. That's not equivalent to some loose claim from a long time ago.
>That would not work. You see what Hamas is willing and was able to do on Oct 7th. If Israel allowed that they’d likely be facing the same as Oct 7th continually.
Lmao, if theres a fear that returned people would continue terrorism, the anger is coming from being held in an open air prison for decades. It should be a police matter, from a government that protects all citizens. Thats the only way to start to repair things.
>The Arabs that remained after the Nakba are full Israeli citizens now. It’s not perfect but to my eyes living next to several Palestinian Israelis they have pretty good lives. Much better than in Jordan actually.
Yes so the arabs that didnt let themselves get forced or ordered off their land retain some rights. That's not the amazing argument you might think it is.
>Unlike the Palestinian governments, Israel has already given citizenship to remaining Arabs and proved they can live peacefully with their minorities. They grant the right to vote. They protect places of worship for all faiths. They’re not perfect but far better than how the Arab peoples and nations treat Jewish minorities pretty much anywhere in the Middle East.
Yet you continually see them being forced off their land by settlers. If you have proven coexistence possible, you would only strengthen it by returning the refugees. If you want a 1 state solution, that state needs to demonstrate it is capable.
>Most Israelis were supportive of it and removing illegal settlers in Gaza, yet it was a political battle against their own extremist elements. Yet despite doing that it only took a couple years before the rockets started coming from Gaza
You need to understand that removing illegal settlers from gaza is like saying you stole someones house and gave them back the couch.
Israel literally has members of its own cabinet that pursue the extermination of palestinians. Gvir literally shows up to pro settler demonstrations and demands people be shot. You need to understand that a decade ago Israel was able to have its global image be quite pure, and people didn't read what Israelis and their government were saying at home. Now its quite easy to access, it would be simpler to drop the pretense.
There’s very few Palestinians in Gaza alive from that time. Even then, while they may have a desire to return home it’s not something any other people in similar conflicts have gotten.
Just as the equivalent numbers of Sephardic Jews who had their properties and homes stolen in Arab nations aren’t going to get them back or get a right of return.
Again it sucks, but you’re asking for a fantasy that modern western people love. We forget how much of our peaceful lives were built on terrible histories.
However Gazans need to begin caring more about the lives of their children rather than trying to regain lost homes or some lost honor in controlling Jerusalem. Homes can be rebuilt.
> Lmao, if theres a fear that returned people would continue terrorism, the anger is coming from being held in an open air prison for decades.
Yet you forget that many Sephardic Jews in the Middle East lived under similar oppression for almost a millennia under various Muslim colonial powers. Yet you don’t give a pass for their terrible actions. That just shows your bias and lack of understanding of the actual history of the region.
You place all the blame on Israel, but Egypt controlled Gaza for decades. They also kept the Gazans trapped. They built concrete walls before the Israelis did.
Jordan keeps 2.39 million Palestinians trapped in refugee camps as well. Jordan tried allowing them to integrate in the 1970’s and they tried to assassinate the king and take over.
> It should be a police matter, from a government that protects all citizens. Thats the only way to start to repair things.
Also there is no “government” that could magically do what you’re saying. Governments aren’t magic. They’re created by people.
The UN British Mandate that was such a government and they proposed forcibly resettling and separating Jewish and Arab populations in the region. So even when your neutral government was tried it advocated for the same separation that happened.
Israeli Jews created a state to protect their people. Yet despite centuries of oppression by Muslim colonizers across the Middle East, Israel decided to give equal rights to their Arab citizens. In the past they’ve offered to allow some Palestinians to return as part of peace-fires and were rejected because they didn’t just want to return home. They have wanted to destroy Israel and install their own Islamic government. Arab nations around them encouraged this and funded this ideology.
> You need to understand that removing illegal settlers from gaza is like saying you stole someones house and gave them back the couch. Israel literally has members of its own cabinet that pursue the extermination of palestinians.
Again with the your simple slogans. Israeli people and their government went against their extremists and did the right thing in 2005.
Hamas did not reciprocate.
> You need to understand that a decade ago Israel was able to have its global image be quite pure, and people didn't read what Israelis and their government were saying at home. Now it’s quite easy to access, it would be simpler to drop the pretense.
You seem to forget that seemingly unlike yourself I lived there and studied Middle Eastern studies. I even learned a fair bit of Hebrew and a very little Arabic.
I even met some of those Israeli settlers. Generally unpleasant types.
However I rarely or never Israelis Jews say they wanted to kill all Palestinians. Most Israelis actually empathize with them and wished for peace but also want to protect their people. They cared less about houses and more about the lives of their people.
On the other hand, it was relatively common to hear Arab Palestinians wish for the death of all Jews when they learned I am not Jewish.
While I hope for peace in Gaza, I also know generations of ideological indoctrination of extremist Islamic won’t disappear overnight. You should study more on the history of the region, not this shallow westernized version.
Ok and then who are those people that are living in Gaza and the West Bank right now? To which country do they belong?
> Even then, while they may have a desire to return home it’s not something any other people in similar conflicts have gotten.
I notice this kind of double-sided argument in lots of discussions. Human rights, Post-WWII world order when Israel is in the defensive, but "Everyone is doing it" and a weird fallback into 19th century "Great Game" morals when Israel is on the offensive.
Homes can be rebuilt, they can be rebuilt where settlers destroyed them.
>it’s not something any other people in similar conflicts have gotten.
If your perspective is "Might makes right" that's a worse position for a people with the history that the jewish people have, than a position that seeks justice.
Justice, and Israel being seen to be doing justice, would make Jews much much much more secure than chasing refugees into a prison and then failing to return them to their land because "it just doesn't happen".
>Jordan keeps 2.39 million Palestinians trapped in refugee camps as well. Jordan tried allowing them to integrate in the 1970’s and they tried to assassinate the king and take over.
Likewise, pushing the idea that a people can be bad, the most literal genetic fallacy, is also not making jewish people safer.
>Also there is no “government” that could magically do what you’re saying. Governments aren’t magic. They’re created by people.
Theres the Israeli government. If they wanted to be seen as legitimate (instead of simply a tool for the settler movement) they would be seen to be doing justice.
>Israeli people and their government went against their extremists and did the right thing in 2005.
Thats crazy. It wasnt even the minimum required.
>However I rarely or never Israelis Jews say they wanted to kill all Palestinians. Most Israelis actually empathize with them and wished for peace but also want to protect their people. They cared less about houses and more about the lives of their people.
I mean its so easily sourced why bother denying it lmao.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/24/israeli-wedding-pa...
>While I hope for peace in Gaza, I also know generations of ideological indoctrination of extremist Islamic won’t disappear overnight. You should study more on the history of the region, not this shallow westernized version.
I know quite a lot about the history of this region, and everything I learn makes me even more angry with the state of Israel, and the extremists who built it.
It’s not right, it just is. Ignoring realities of the situation has just made the lives of Gazans worse.
Accepting that the Jewish and an Arab populations separated and were exchanged after decades of fighting and massacres on both sides is just embracing reality.
The lives of the Palestinians would be better if as a culture and society, they accepted what happened and built new lives. The Israelis did.
Instead Gazan leaders with near unanimous popular support have continually tried to use violence and force to reconquer the lands they lost rather than protect their people. They use the lives of their children as human shields and their deaths as propaganda as they know militarily they’re weaker. They openly admit this.
Personally I find it cruel that parents in Gaza subject their children to indoctrination that being a jihadist and retaking Jerusalem is their noblest goal in life in order fuel a never ending conflict.
Again it’s tragic that two people groups with long established roots in the region were separated and displaced with both sides losing lands and properties during those decades.
However there’s no justice in saying only one of the two groups (the Palestinians) should be given their grand parents lands and properties back. That’s what the right of return of Palestinians would be as the Arab Muslim nations aren’t going to reciprocate for the displaced Jews.
Forcing relocation to “traditional” pre state of Israel regions would require even more horrible violence and force with people of both ethnicities loosing what they’ve built up in their lives. That’s not justice either.
That’s just wishful western liberal thinking. There’s usually a dash of racism of “poor brown people” too, despite the majority of Israeli Jews not being “white” or even from Europe.
> I mean it’s so easily sourced why bother denying it lmao.
I’m not denying it. Just saying that in my experience having met dozens or hundreds from both sides that one group was much more open on average to finding peace and even coexistence. That’s just my anecdotal data.
> I know quite a lot about the history of this region, and everything I learn makes me even more angry with the state of Israel, and the extremists who built it.
Then perhaps do you know enough of the history to be aware that Palestinians are largely descendants of the extremist Islamic colonizers who conquered the lands starting a thousand years back? The indigenous peoples there weren’t Arabs after all.
Those Muslim conquerors have for centuries persecuted not just Jewish, but also Christian, Druze, and many other minorities in not just Greater Syrian (what Israel and Palestine was called under the Ottoman Empire) but also the rest of the Middle East?
Again, I’ll point out that Arabs in Israel have equal rights as citizens and better lives than those in most of the surrounding Arab countries. There’s certainly some racism against them but they can and do build prosperous lives.
Trying to recast the history of the region into a white-colonial issue of the past 120 years is being ignorant of the history of the peoples and ethnicities in the area over the past 1000 years and more.
The Israelis imported jewish people from all over the world to live on land that they pushed the palestinians out of. Its not exactly an equivalent "Move on" situation. Moving on would be aided by getting access to their land.
>However there’s no justice in saying only one of the two groups (the Palestinians) should be given their grand parents lands and properties back. That’s what the right of return of Palestinians would be as the Arab Muslim nations aren’t going to reciprocate for the displaced Jews.
I mean, happy for jewish refugees to be returned to various arab countries, heck even germany. I would not argue if they wanted to return to where they were removed from in living memory. The issue is that they don't, they are happy living on Palestinian land, while holding palestinians hostage.
>Then perhaps do you know enough of the history to be aware that Palestinians are largely descendants of the extremist Islamic colonizers who conquered the lands starting a thousand years back? The indigenous peoples there weren’t Arabs after all.
I am aware, but 1000 years ago is kind of outside of our timescale. If it helps, sometimes I do think Britain would be better off without the angles or saxons, but too much time has passed in both circumstances.
>Again, I’ll point out that Arabs in Israel have equal rights as citizens and better lives than those in most of the surrounding Arab countries. There’s certainly some racism against them but they can and do build prosperous lives.
Its fairly plainly false. Again, you speak of knowing so much about the region, but if you see how people are forced to live in the west bank you would never use the term equal.
You should really educate yourself on this topic.
If the war in Gaza was really just about Hamas, then a) Israel wouldn't have been tacitly supporting them for decades, and b) It would be well and truly over already, given that they're completely defanged and have no more competent regional allies.
Maybe they were genocides too. I don't know enough about them. The holocaust certainly was a genocide. Yes.
But one genocide doesn't justify another. That's the thing.
Even what Hamas did (terrible as it was) doesn't justify all the dead civilians, withholding food, shooting at food pickup points etc.
Wtf does some history lesson you want to be coy about have to do with innocent civilians starving, every day, more and more, in the present moment?
FWIW, for much of the early months I would have agreed. Hamas was the de-facto government, and had an obligation to unconditionally surrender. Blending in with civilians can’t be a method to avoid military force.
you don't shoot children in the head and genitals in war.
you don't kill doctors and medical first responders in war.
you don't commit a policy of mass starvation against children while gaslighting us about it.
People like you need to be called out. its disgusting and I can't believe we're all still here putting up with it. the IDF is no better than hamas. they justs have bigger guns.
Also, since the UK has now criminalized calling the Gaza situation a genocide under terrorism statutes, the camera vans make sense in driving by peaceful protestors and getting all their faces for arrest later.
For all the Chinese surveillance hatred I've seen over the years, what the UK is doing is loads worse.
And also the excuse included: “not China”, but even this doesn’t come as cause for concern anymore.
Have a look at the latest US “country report on human rights practices 2025”. Germany is flagged as unsafe so to say.
It is as you can only hope that the NSA has some way to spy on your data when EU gets more on more anti privacy and data protection means EU only storage is mandatory.
Dire times. Double standards are in full effect.
Please. Stop falling for the right-wing propaganda.
Germany can be unsafe and US too to the extent they need national guard to get back control
We have another token legislation from EU forbidding private parties to most anything, and carefully inserting loopholes for authorities and government to do as they please.
True, the restrictions on live facial recognition is a bit more severe for law enforcement than usual.
But: A. It's not something most people here care about a lot. Law enforcement are still allowed to use AI to create a file on every citizen. B. It gives them political points, because now people less-in-the-know will think that they are actually protecting privacy, which is again, not true.
well thank fuck for that! besides financial self-interest, why would you want private parties doing anything with AI and biometrics whatsoever? if anyone is to at all, it should be publicly accountable bodies that aren't operating based on a profit motive, but really it should be none at all!
>It gives them political points, because now people less-in-the-know will think that they are actually protecting privacy, which is again, not true.
this entire sentence stinks of "I just don't like the EU and I'm just going to criticise it no matter what". people in the know? people who have read the law specifically stating that facial recognition can only be used in severe, clearly-defined cases, with judicial approval, in highly time-limited windows? people who've read that if it is to be used post-hoc, it has to have judicial authorisation linked to a criminal offence. and you're saying that this in no way protects privacy?
the UK is rolling out AI police vans all over the country to try and recognise people they have on lists. no judicial approval is required, there's no time-limit, and as far as I'm aware there's no restriction on what crimes it's used for either. private companies are allowed to use it, obviously equally with no judicial approval
essentially mate, I think you need to have a good look at whether your opinions here are coming from "I genuinely think the EU's legislation is an issue here" or "I don't like the idea of the EU in general and I'm going to criticise anything it does"
I can't really begin to fathom how this is good.
"Private parties" are mighty multinational enterprises with essentially limitless pockets, entities whose factual power and political influence rivals most governments. Countries all over the world have been struggling to restrain them for the past decade in order to keep their sovereignty.
What exact "interests and ideas" do you have that would involve the necessity for public facial recognition? Because I, for one, don't want my biometric data in your system without my explicit consent.
"Private parties" refer to non-governmental entities, such as individuals or businesses. You may be acting on a governments behalf, but I am not.
> I, for one, don't want my biometric data in your system without my explicit consent.
If it's a single individual watching (for example) the sidewalk in front of his house and not disseminating the data in any way then what does it matter? Where is the potential downside? There are plenty of neighborhoods with at least a few retirees sitting staring out the front window for multiple hours each day.
As far as I can tell in the vast majority of cases surveillance only becomes problematic when both ubiquitous and centralized.
Or at least just say that straight instead of surrounding it with empty verbiage. The overwhelming proportion of people all over the world don't care about the EU until it does a horrible (or a good) thing, and then they care about the thing it did and why it might have done it. It's not their ex-boyfriend.
People are trying to figure out why it's run by crazy people now, and they blame this on the fact that it is largely an undemocratic organization run by extreme multi-generational elites with a quickly lowering opinion on human rights, freedom of speech and the importance of peace. This is not personal. The EU is not a person.
The EU courts have sometimes been helpful, but the EU lawmakers have been atleast as bad as the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
As other comments have pointed out the EU has also pushed a lot of other privacy invasive legislation.
As shocking as this is, it's not _surprising_
I'm 55 and pretty well travelled and I've noted similar levels of coverage in many EU countries and the US and CA and of course CN (to be fair, my experience of CN is only HK).
I don't know why people get so whizzed up about London's CCTV coverage. For me the scariest area is the M42 south of Birmingham. Every few 100 yards there is a high level camera at height and lots of ANPR.
It is quite a logical place to concentrate on. Look at a map of England - Brum is in the middle of England and the main roads run nearby. M1 from the southeast, M5 from the southwest, then M1 and M6 (takes over from M5) carry on to the northeast and west.
My own house has six HD cameras with Frigate to co-ordinate, analyse and record. My Reolinks never get to see the internet! Four are on the garden and two watch the front door, one is the door bell.
Now ... "since the '70s": I'm old enough to remember the seventies (I still have several mugs for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, when I was seven). Back then video (VHS) was not a thing, neither was CCTV. We had three TV channels FFS! A cutting edge TV camera at the time was a huge beast and certainly was not mounted on a building or street lamp.
Are you a local?
Anyway, on the cameras you're spot on. I do wonder how much UK cameras are used though - like a microcosm of our national potential, the cameras have potential but how often are they really used: half are likely faulty, most have the person monitoring them on a tea break when something happens and it seems to need an extreme act of violence before they get used in earnest.
Our Jub mugs were mostly transfer printed. We had coloured ones and ones with a sort of silvery monochrome effort.
I'm not too sure that the meme that the UK is the most monitored nation in the world is too true.
You probably remember 1984. I went to a jolly posh school in Devon (Wolborough Hill School, Newton Abbot) and we had to discuss 1984 in 1984.
Do you feel too monitored? I suspect that monitoring is under-reported elsewhere.
https://live.staticflickr.com/2314/2171185463_92a40441ab_b.j...
The Brits have been going full steam ahead for many decades.
>it’s clearly a trend. Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things?
No
From the article:
> Under the plans, 10 live facial recognition (LFR) vans will be used by seven forces across England to help identify "sex offenders or people wanted for the most serious crimes", according to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
I guess it depends on how dangerous these criminals are. If there was someone offing kids randomly in my neighborhood, I wouldn't necessarily be against this technology. I think it would be good in schools, where we really should know exactly anyone entering the school. But of course there is a limit.
I’ll let you figure out who’s quote that is
This is important, because if your point ever becomes a significant argument against the Online Safety Act, it is likely that the government will be able to retort that it was the online services voluntarily censoring - conveniently ignoring, of course, the context which you and I know of.
But when I went to school, I somehow felt like teachers had the power of the world behind them. I imagine, to some degree, politicians have a similar experience. There are countless people that wouldn't be upset at all about their decline, or worse. Of course this has always been the case, but I think modern politicians are becoming increasingly out of touch with society, and consequently also becoming increasingly paranoid about society turning against them. And society doesn't just mean you or me, but also the police and military, without the support of whom they'd just be some rich old frail men sitting around making lofty proclamations and empty threats.
I think this issue largely explains the increasingly absurd degrees of apparent paranoia and fear of the political establishment in most countries. As well as the push for domestic establishment propaganda, censorship of anti-establishment propaganda, defacto mandating politics from a young age, imposing it on the police and even the military, and so forth.
I do believe certain parcels of the society need to be restrained.
No Sharron I don't want to hear the gosip about your extended family as you talk on speaker with your sister about your trailer trash cousins. And Jack I don't want to hear your shitty political podcast with their hosts room temperture IQ...
Also it's very rude (in British terms, so it's off-the-charts for me).
Basically sometime around the 00s-10s, seemingly everyone decided to become a massive dickface with zero concept of social cohesion, and it's just me me me me me me, and fuck everyone else.
Society needs a reset, pretty much everyone has just become vile, angry and inconsiderate / extreme main-character syndrome.
We shouldn’t be surprised society has fallen.
In the real world things seem to be pretty much the same as they have been for most of my life (and I am 60 in a few months).
Online, yes some people behave like monsters and occasionally some of that bleeds across into the real world - but overall I think we are pretty far from saying that "society has fallen".
How can you do effective conflict resolution in a society where someone reads an anecdote about a rude teenager and immediately assumes the problem is multiculturalism?
Rephrased for you: If there is no dominant culture, how do you resolve conflicts like that?
I don't remember bringing up race. Another interesting leap.
But please do elaborate on what sort of 'dominant culture' you're longing for and what sort of policies you'd love to see to (re-)establish that 'dominant culture' to resolve the incredibly new phenomenon of teenagers being rude and rebelling against social norms.
Come on, don't be a coward and just drop the dogwhistling. You're bad at it.
A dominant culture means a step back from individualist values. The most effective 'policies' are created through communities not through law. We cannot rely only on the law for a healthy society; it is necessary but not sufficient.
Rebelling against cultural norms is not the problem. The problem is when people escalate quickly because of it and threaten others. That means the gaps between cultures/subcultures have gotten too big.
But I see we've pivoted from "multiculturalism bad" to pseudo-intellectual theorizing about collective cultural conformity. Very smooth. Different packaging, still trying to sell the same product, though.
> The problem is when people escalate quickly because of it and threaten others.
Guy asked teenager to use headphones, teenager got defensive, guy put in earplugs. That's... literally de-escalation and conflict avoidance. Are we reading the same anecdote?
You've managed to escalate "rude teenager won't use headphones" into a lament about the decline of Western civilization and the need for cultural homogeneity. It's almost impressive how much ideological weight you're hanging on one kid's refusal to wear headphones.
More name-calling. You still haven't addressed my initial question yet. I'll rephrase it again for you: How do you enforce norms without a dominant culture? Do we even need norms at all?
The fact that the teenager got defensive is indicative of his understanding of societal expectations and norms. Bending and pushing against norms is what teenagers do, and have done since the dawn of time, regardless of their cultural background and regardless of whether they're navigating the norms of a dominant monoculture or those of a multicultural society.
Your question assumes there was some breakdown that needs fixing, but the only 'problem' was mild inconvenience. When did that become evidence of cultural collapse requiring homogeneity to solve?
You still haven't explained why 'teenager won't use headphones' made you think 'multiculturalism is a problem.' For all you know, this story involved two white Christian Scots from the same cultural background. I'll gladly discuss theories about norm enforcement with you once you've explained why you deemed it necessary to inject race and culture into a story that mentioned neither.
I'm not going to entertain your 'just asking questions' routine until you do.
But you're welcome, I guess. At least one of us did.
You've kicked this entire thread off with an incredibly telling non sequitur: teenager won't use headphones -> multiculturalism bad. When called out on that leap, you pivoted to abstract questions about norm enforcement while ignoring that the norms actually worked fine in this situation.
You're not interested in debate. You're interested in getting someone to validate your predetermined conclusion about the necessity of a cultural hegemony. Having to acknowledge that norm enforcement wasn't actually broken here is pretty inconvenient for that narrative, isn't it?
Still waiting for you to explain that original leap, but we both know you won't. Because you can't without exposing yourself further. Good day. Thanks for playing.
If the families did not impart these values to children from a young age, the "owner" of a space advertises and enforces the rules.
In this particular case the coach company should have had clear rules displayed in the coach (at least the basic and generic ones) and the driver should have enforced them at least on demand. Follow the rules or get off the coach.
Your libertarian argument works in theory, but the reality is much harder when you can't rely on a shared culture.
Callous anti-social phone behavior isn't just the prerogative of teens.
The more disruption there is in society, the more people seem willing to accept increased control by authorities. I'm not necessarily saying this is part of some grand plan, but it does seem convenient for politicians when circumstances justify stronger control measures.
My measuring stick is how “on message” the people reporting it tend to be. A real disaster or crisis is chaotic, and authentic reporting about it tends to be too (think about mixed messaging during the early days of COVID). If something happens and there’s a very clear narrative from the start about who the good guys and bad guys are, especially if it is trying to make me scared or mad, I just assume I’m being manipulated.
I’m not here to agree or disagree — I can only share my own experiences.
There is always a danger that the ruling class may not stay in power forever, unless the others are nailed to the ground.
No but the people have become so alienated and afraid as to demand it anyway.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24076378.just-17-per-cent-....
The media was the main culprit. When an article comes out they would use words that make one surveillance sound dystopian and the other sound vigilant.
The end result is that surveillance in the west has been scoring small wins under the radar and what’s happening in the UK is the “breaking stealth” of a surveillance state.
Had people just seen surveillance as surveillance none of this would have happened.
Factually, objectively false. Nobody thinks of Taiwan as having a surveillance state (or being evil along other axes), yet they're overwhelmingly (95%) Han Chinese - which is more Han Chinese than China itself. If there was any racism in these opinions whatsoever, then the people making statements about the PRC surveillance state would project the same beliefs onto Taiwan. That they don't is more than enough to prove your blatant lie completely false.
The fact is that the Chinese surveillance is just factually different than western surveillance and people are acknowledging this as true, to the point where people like you have to lie about racism to emotionally manipulate people because they can't argue their points from reality.
Making up falsehoods out of thin air is bad enough, but next time you do it, you'll save yourself personal embarrassment if the lie is at least somewhat plausible instead of dismissable with a 30-second trip to the internet.
In the case of the UK they've often also been operating in collusion with state forces, see: Northern Ireland.
Rather than dangeours, society became dumber in a sense. overload of data resulted attemps to summarize or even make anything binary (I'm Pro X or Anti X).
(the text below is opinionated so please be forgiving :) )
I can name multiple countries (as I'm coming from one) that makes more "reforms" that has or will hurt human rights. (and we're still talking only on the "western world" which suppose to aim for freedom and human rights).
Coming from such a complex place in the world, I sadly say, that looking at stages in my life, I can easily remember the "good'ol'days" where there was one horrible thing, but I didn't know it can get worse.
I do hope society (and brits in the context of the above), will find the right balance to make a balance between feeling secured and invading privacy.
Over the last hundred years, violent crime has droped sharply worldwide.
Over the last twenty years, it has fallen alot in developed countries such as Western Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea.
In the United Kingdom, both violent and property crime have gone down in the past two decades. The main exception is fraud, scams and cybercrime, which have increased.
Overall, crime, especially violent crime, is far lower now than it used to be.
So why does it not feel that way? Mostly because we are floded with news about every incident. It sticks in our heads and makes us beleive things are worse than they are. It is like air travel: whenever there is a major crash, the headlines fill up with every minor incident, even though flying has never been safer than it is today.
This is less about criminality and more about control.
There's definitely an argument to be made that things have gotten safer because we have more surveillance, but that argument also has many valid counter-arguments, and giving away your freedom for absolute law and order isn't the way to go in my opinion, especially when you use narratives like "crime in DC is at an all time high" like we've seen in the USA lately which is false. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/violent-crime-dc-hits-30-...
A balance of surveillance and freedom is necessary for a healthy society. (By surveillance in this context, I mean simple things like CCTVs, police patrols, not necessarily drag-nets, face rec, whatever mind you).
Having said that, I don't think the surveillance state they're setting up even has the intent to change any of that.
> The police collected bags of clothes the girl had saved as evidence, but lost them two days later. The family was sent £140 compensation for the clothes and advised to drop the case.
How about instead of attacking credentials we attack the arguments, you know, with evidence? Or, if your best defence is saying "your ideas/evidence come from unsavoury sources (to me)" maybe your positions are more reflective of your own biases than reality.
The accusation that immigrant men from Muslim backgrounds are sex offenders is a well worn trope pushed by the far right and people like Farage and Yaxley-Lennon
If you actually look at crime statistics in the UK sex offenders, including grooming gangs are overwhelming white men — if you look closer you often find that a reasonable proportion of people on the far-right have convictions for sex offences
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/14/grooming-gangs...
3.7% of sexual abuse cases involved group based abuse
Asian or British Asian people account for 5% of offenders while making up 9% of the British populatiin
Or, you know, because of coverups by the authorities?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo...
I don't think its fair for someone to say, "well, its all scare mongering by the Daily Mail". They certainly have an interest in making the world seem scary, but the perception of danger is very strong regardless of what a tabloid rag says.
"Broken windows" policing, as tried under Mike Bloomberg in New York, is unfashionable in the US and the UK, and has led to abuses, but there's a kernel of truth in there somewhere.
Criminals might be deterred by knowing that people definitely get arrested in a certain location, because, say, they've seen it themselves, or because they see a presence of law enforcement, or because they innately sense its a high status environment where law enforcement response is to be expected.
A criminal seeing a sign might conclude that the sign is actually telling them that no immediate law enforcement response is likely.
For example, in London, you dont see CCTV signs in the shops along Sloane Street (super high end retail) but you definitely see them in Primark (very ordinary store, like US Kohls).
Wonder if there are any studies on this?
China is strict with people rioting or complaining a little too much about the government, but they don't lock people up for saying general no no words or being too patriotic/nationalistic online. And apparently Chinese courts even limited facial recognition (no clue how it'll work in practice though). [1]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-says-facial-recogni...
How absurd is this statement. China jails and disappears people for online statements at a rate several orders of magnitude larger than any western country.
It's borderline ridiculous to even make a comparison. Some quick examples:
1. https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/chinas-system-of-mass-arbitr...
2. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/china/hong-kong-security-arre...
You can get arrested for "picking quarrels" online:
3. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3146188/pic...
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr548zdmz3jo.amp
[2] https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2025-07-17/debates/F807C...