Is 4chan the perfect Pirate Bay poster child to justify wider UK site-blocking?

The West aren't good guys and have never been the good guys. We talked a good talk about democracy when we had communism to compare it to, but without that to contrast with, we look increasingly like the managed democracies you see out East.

From what I witnessed over years is, European countries loved to point fingers to other countries to educate them about how their democracies shall look like.

Now they are doing the very same things they pointed fingers about and, now there's no structured information flow to hide this.

As I sometimes tend to say: "God has an interesting sense of humor".

So naive. Talking points from the mouthpieces of the CCP and Russia who would love us to believe we’re all the same

    > managed democracies you see out East

Can you name some? I am confused by this term.

Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia all have fairly robust democracies. Yes, some of them probably look and feel different than those of NATO, but they are a great improvement over previous colonial administrations, monarchies, theocracies, and "single party democratic states" (Korea and Taiwan before late 1980s/early 1990s break-throughs).

While the West aren't really the good guy, I think there is an argument that could be made that the West is the better guy. Because while government outreach like those discussed are a scary possibility in the West nowadays, in the 'East' (more like Russia & China), it is a given and there are no recourse.

No, it's not naive at all. The UK in particular are not the good guys.

Apart from their appalling behaviour during their recent expeditionary wars, their current support of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, their sexual and physical abuse of locals near British Overseas bases, they also have an incredibly poor record with their own citizens.

British behaviour in Northern Ireland was itself genocidal, and involved the regular murder of civilians from decades. Even today they are continuing the legal protection of the perpetrators.

The West is the least bad if you live in an area where Western forces aren't currently bombing you or directly supporting the people starving you to death. Then China probably seems a lot better.

> We talked a good talk about democracy when we had communism to compare it to

You can't think yourself a free thinker to realize the west is a force for evil in the world and simultaneously believe the western's propagandist depiction of what communism is it makes for a very incoherent world view. "It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single time."

Russians of any gender or minority could vote for their representative in 1917. Women in the States only got full suffrage in 1920, African Americans in 1965. So no real pedigree there.

So if Germany supports Israel bombing Gazans they are bad, but if China supports the Russian bombing of Ukrainians, suddenly it's a lot better?

Not everyone you disagree with is a CCP/Russia/<insert_scapegoat> mouthpiece.

Anyone who thinks the West is the better guy needs to look closely at the Western-backed Genocide in Palestine.

Maybe re-read my comment.

From the perspective of the Gazan parents watching their children starve to death, yes, China probably seems a lot better than the UK, which is directly responsible for their situation.

The Ukrainian parent suffering Russian bombing is likely has a much better opinion of the UK for their support, but that doesn't make the UK the good guys. Just less bad in that particular situation.

And only in 1917... :)

> there is an argument that could be made that the West is the better guy

The problem is you don't know how you are actually behaving towards the global south, so your perception is very skewed and people outside the west will have a vastly different perception than you, that you will never understand. Like some people in the west are waking up on Israels behavior now, but the rest of the world was aware of their genocidal terror for over half a century while you lived in innocent bliss. They see your support for Obama and Dove emojis in your profile picture while their entire extended families are getting systematically murdered by your bombs to this day.

Meanwhile in your made up fantasy land, its China that is this great threat to world peace.

What people don't get is the defining feature of the West (or more correctly advanced societies) isn't democracy, it's rule of law.

- It's why you don't have to fear getting put on a show trial if you piss off the wrong people or they just want your stuff

- It's why the rich (and not so rich) are safe storing their wealth there, knowing the bank won't collapse tomorrow, or they won't confiscate their wealth on a whim.

- It's why you know the water's safe to drink and the food's safe to eat

- It's why you can produce steel good enough so that your buildings don't collapse, and others will buy your cars know they won't fall apart, due to being relying on a shady subcontractor.

- It's why people are willing to pay taxes, knowing they get functioning public services.

Places like China are finding out why you need these things, and are building these systems so their society can succeed.

Democracy's just an (Western) artifact of enforcing and maintaining rule of law.

I was thinking largely of Russia, but when it comes to internet freedoms we're absolutely heading in a China direction.

Coming at it here from a broadly UK perspective. We have:

- Very little difference between ruling parties on core issues since the seventies, I'm thinking largely on the economic and foreign policy front here.

- Prison under terrorism offenses for peaceful protest.

- Arrests for (checks notes) complaining about the management of your local school in a WhatsApp group.[1]

People who argue we're somehow better than the people we happen to be fighting need to take a long hard look around. And maybe also remember that when we're not fighting folks (e.g., Saudi, Israel) abhorrent behaviour is tolerated and supported.

[^1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dj1zlvxglo

This is a bit complicated. Law can absolutely be used to persecute people.

For example, there once was so-called Bill of Attainder, which basically meant that a certain person was labeled as an outlaw, traitor, and handled as such.

It was an actual law, voted on by the Parliament, but even though usage of Bills of Attainder was perfectly consistent with rule of law, it was not that different from a classical Stalinist show trial in effect.

This is also why Bills of Attainder are banned by the US Constitution.

Yeah, its amazing how good the isralies are at everything (tech, intelligence, manufacturing) but its taking them years to commit genocide. Despite their massive force advantage.

False equivalence. One of them is a (failed) proxy war the other is genocide.

Genocide is a process and intent, not an outcome. Are you saying it's not genocide because everyone's not dead or forced off their land yet?

Considerably fewer civilians died in say, Srebrenica. Bosnian Muslims still live there. There are still Jews in Germany, Tutsis in Rwanda. The original inhabitants of the Americas and Australia still live there.

I'd also note -- as someone who's lived there -- that what Israel as a nation really excels at isn't tech, intelligence or manufacturing. Plenty of other countries are equal and above. I'd say it's marketing and comms.

> What people don't get is the defining feature of the West (or more correctly advanced societies) isn't democracy, it's rule of law.

The trouble with this is that it isn't compatible with prosecutorial discretion. It requires that if someone is breaking the law, they get prosecuted for it. Otherwise unenforced laws accumulate until everyone is breaking a hundred laws at any given time and then only the disfavored get prosecuted.

But if you want laws to be consistently enforced then they need to be few and simple enough for people to understand and comply with them, and that was historically the magic formula, which we've increasingly abandoned, much to our detriment.

African Americans got the right to vote in the US in 1870.

But a whole state-level legislative architecture meant that suffrage wasn't accessible nationwide till the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Modern voter registration laws, which are gathering pace today, are largely targeted at keeping minority voters from exercising their democratic rights.

Great timeline here: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/05/politics/black-v...

And by contrast it is America which which has the civil forfeiture practices.

If you want to talk about whether something exists in practice rather than on paper then I have some news for you about Russia.

You're going to have to explain yourself there, son.

No, but they could very easily be using the same talking points

I consider it naive to even start talking about nation states in terms of ‘good guys’

So? Maybe the Russians are right about some things, now and then.

> believe the western's propagandist depiction of what communism

The main problem with communism was that it was much worse than Western propaganda portrayed it to be. Because if Western propaganda had tried to depict it truthfully, no one would have believed it. Communism is so much worse that it is literally unbelievable, so anti-communist propaganda has to make communism look good in order for anyone to believe it.

Yeah, exactly. I'm saying the UK and America have democracies of equal quality to and poorer pedigree than Russia.

Edit for clarity.

Japan has had a ruling party in power almost continously for 70 years. If the ruling party was not friendly to the West, then I bet you it would be called something else than democracy.

Forced deportation of Ukrainian children, the rhetoric denying Ukrainian nationhood and massacres in places like Bucha definitely put the Ukrainian war into genocide territory.

But if you want to talk about "real" genocides, China is backing Myanmar.

Doubtful

> It's why you don't have to fear getting put on a show trial if you piss off the wrong people or they just want your stuff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Scott_(criminal)

> It's why the rich (and not so rich) are safe storing their wealth there, knowing the bank won't collapse tomorrow, or they won't confiscate their wealth on a whim.

https://troymedia.com/lifestyle/your-money/debanking-is-otta... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/a...

> It's why you know the water's safe to drink and the food's safe to eat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan

> It's why you can produce steel good enough so that your buildings don't collapse, and others will buy your cars know they won't fall apart, due to being relying on a shady subcontractor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_pro...

> It's why people are willing to pay taxes, knowing they get functioning public services.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/22/tax-evasion-by-wealthiest-am...

I mean, I get that it could be worse, but...

Well, all countries are complex collections of people and ideas, so like people, there are no pure good guys.

But we have all been subjected to particularly US propaganda portraying the West as the global good guys, and specproc challenged that worldview in the comment to which you replied. Ironically, you criticised him for being naive as he was challenging the concept of the West as the good guys, something you now call naive yourself.

So it seems you aren't internally consistent.

> Everyone knows what genocide means.

Yes, it's spelled out very clearly to be based in intent and not outcome here: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-...

If anyone is trying to "gaslight" anyone, it's going to be in the direction of justifying the actions of Israel (or the West's support of or complicity in it).

From the perspective of the Gazan parents, the worst of all should be Hamas (who is actually directly responsible for their situation) since they insist on poking the bear and getting Gaza into military conflicts they can't win.

> the other is genocide

How is it a genocide? It's pretty clearly a war in an urban environment where there will be a lot of civilian casualties. Was the battle of Stalingrad a "genocide" too?

I wonder how quickly people will start to scrub their online presence now that the zeitgeist has turned against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians.

You're on the wrong side of history and a despicable human being.

> It's why you don't have to fear getting put on a show trial if you piss off the wrong people or they just want your stuff

Civil asset forfeiture suggests that's very much a thing to fear.

> It's why you know the water's safe to drink

Tell this to the people of Flint, Michigan. Or the many communities near fracking sites.

Yeah, definitely don't blame the country actually committing genocide.

You sound like someone who is excusing domestic violence by saying, "if she didn't want to get hit, she shouldn't have talked back".

Fuck Hamas, I don't support hamas, but like, Israeli actions in Gaza are clearly inexcusable.

Did you ever expect to be making this kind of argument when you were growing up and learning about 20th century horrors? Or did you imagine yourself the kind of person who would have resisted in 1930s germany?

the propaganda has worked wonders on you

Propaganda tends to make the victims of that propaganda sound incoherent, but that's ok, the only purpose it really serves today, is to explain to you why you can't have health care.

FWIW… that you can only point to one specific place in the USA with bad water, and some non-specific generalized place is a fairly good point against your argument.

Yes. I don’t know why anyone would point to people with the safest and most economic mobility in history as some sort of success story!

And those exceptions largely prove the rule - the default expectation (not just desire) is that those things not happen. They still do, but it's not something that occurs to most off the tops of their heads. When you educate people on civil forfeiture you get a lot of shocked Pikachu; somewhat fewer with severe water quality issues, but I think that's mostly due to broad publication of Flint's situation in particular raising general awareness.

> the safest and most economic mobility in history

Do you believe this is the US?

Roughly one in three Americans water sources are chemically polluted, predominantly in minority areas: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP14721?mc_cid=180f74...

Yeah the comment you're replying to feels very insulated from the real world. It's the kind of thing you'd hear in a middle school social studies class about how great America is.

you've been brainwashed

I mean, I'm not one of those "America/West Bad" people either, it's just "rule of law" is not it. We are well into our Kleptocracy era. Still prefer what we have to alternatives though.

All of these examples serve to prove their point, being that "advanced societies" use rule of law to deal with such problems. It is consistent in that view that they occur due to a lack of enforcement of the laws/regulations that prevent them.

Pretty callous. I doubt dying Ukrainians care that you dismiss their war as "proxy". The unprovoked invasion and resulting deaths are a fact. And Russia absolutely wants to destroy the Ukrainian identity, so that actually is a genocide.

Sometimes I wonder what contemporary Hacker News would say about my country freedom fighters back in the day. If they lost, I'm pretty sure we would call them terrorists or bandits instead.

The US has generally had elections in which whether you could run did not depend on your ideology or opposition to the current administration, and the candidate who got the most votes would get into office. Russia, not so much.

    > Japan has had a ruling party in power almost continously for 70 years.

On the surface, this is true. When you look deeper, you will realise that LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) is so large, that it acts as a platform, instead of as a single, monolithic political party. Within the LDP are various factions that win or lose elections and premierships. It is also interesting to compare the Singaporean "democratic" system versus the Japanese one. Very quickly, you will realise that "single ruling party" looks different once you understand the details.