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Denmark reportedly withdraws Chat Control proposal following controversy

(therecord.media)
568 points layer8 | 2 comments | 30 Oct 25 21:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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ineedasername ◴[31 Oct 25 03:35 UTC] No.45768131[source]▶
I’m continually astounded that so many people, faced with a societal problem, reflexively turn to “Hmmm, perhaps if we monitored and read and listened to every single thing that every person does, all of the time…”

As though it would 1) be a practical possibility and 2) be effective.

Compounding the issue is that the more technology can solve #1, the more these people fixate on it as the solution without regards to the lack of #2.

I wish there were a way, once and for all, to prevent this ridiculous idea from taking hold over and over again. If I could get a hold of such people when these ideas were in their infancy… perhaps I should monitor everything everyone does and watch for people considering the same as a solution to their problem… ah well, no, still don’t see how that follows logically as a reasonable solution.

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9dev ◴[31 Oct 25 09:22 UTC] No.45769961[source]▶
I think a lot of this is rooted in the basic world view people have. Those with a conservative mindset will think of humans as fundamentally flawed, misguided creatures that need to be contained and steered so they don’t veer of the path, which they are naturally inclined to; while those with a liberal mindset consider humans to be inherently kind and only misguided by circumstances and their environment.

Most people can pretty clearly relate to one of these perspectives over the other, and it’s pretty clear what actions follow from that.

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graemep ◴[31 Oct 25 10:15 UTC] No.45770316[source]▶
That is at best simplistic, and at worst completely inaccurate.

It is common for "liberal" governments, as in the UK at the moment, who are inclined to pass censorship, surveillance and control (of people's lives) laws. It is also common for "conservative" governments to do the same.

What is very common is for people to think themselves and people like themselves to be naturally kind and people unlike themselves as fundamentally flawed.

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9dev ◴[31 Oct 25 11:36 UTC] No.45770890[source]▶
You’re talking about parties, while I was referring to ideology. And in ideological terms, while a HN comment isn’t scientific, I think I represented the ideology of conservatism and liberalism correctly here, so call out the social sciences over that.
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1. graemep ◴[31 Oct 25 11:50 UTC] No.45770998[source]▶
Parties are associated with ideologies and supported by people who share their ideologies.

> I think I represented the ideology of conservatism and liberalism correctly here, so call out the social sciences over that.

If you are saying that you there is a correct definition within the social sciences, can you cite an authoritative source for that?

In any case you were talking about "the world view people have" and I think your definition correlates very poorly with those of people one would normally describe as "liberal" or "conservative". I am not even sure which mindset you associate with the "monitor and control" mentality. I think you mean its a conservative mindset, but a lot of the people I know who most strongly oppose it are conservative or Conservative (as in members of the party that has the word in its name).

This might be a US vs UK difference, of course. These are not words that are really used very consistently within societies, let alone between them.

> so call out the social sciences over that.

Happy to do so if that is what they say!

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2. 9dev ◴[31 Oct 25 13:12 UTC] No.45771621[source]▶
> If you are saying that you there is a correct definition within the social sciences, can you cite an authoritative source for that?

You can start at Wikipedia, for example, which quotes Thomas Hobbes:

> the state of nature for humans was "poor, nasty, brutish, and short", requiring centralized authority with royal sovereignty to guarantee law and order.

And further:

> Conservatism has been called a "philosophy of human imperfection" by political scientist Noël O'Sullivan, reflecting among its adherents a negative view of human nature and pessimism of the potential to improve it through 'utopian' schemes.

I don’t mean to insinuate "conservatives are evil and want to spy on citizens", but merely that they are generally more inclined to believe people are inherently incapable of behaving well, so they need to be nudged towards the right thing. Really believing this makes it far more likely to view government monitoring as a plausible solution to the problem they see. And again, I’m saying this without implying any judgement.