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Comment by nickpp | Hacker News Reader

I wonder who are people more afraid of exposing their private information to: the USA or their own government.

Definitely USA. My government doesn't drone strike people based on communication patterns or disappear them to black sites without ever being put in front of a judge.

Are you afraid USA would drone strike or disappear you if they get to your private data? Do you think that is a valid concern for most people?

I think it's a valid concern for everyone, yes.

Then you should get out more and talk to some real people.

You are aware that there was a number of completely innocent people who were disappeared int US black sites, because of some name mismatch, something they said somewhere or because their neighbor didn't like them. Now you might be white and have an English name so chances of that happening to you might be slim.

However if you do not believe that this is an issue that we have to work against i suggest you get out and develop some principles. You seem to only have issues with these things if done by communist governments.

I am aware. Those cases number in what - single digits?! Statistically speaking I am much more likely to die of the flu.

However, communist governments have done that to millions. If you don't see the difference, I suggest you reexamine your principles.

You framed the question. Don't push the goal posts around by pointing to past autocracies. It might be a very small risk, but it is infinitely bigger than the risk from my own govenment - where the risk is zero.

There are current autocracies too, not only past ones. Also communist, of course.

And I was talking about my government, not yours.

Single digits is still single digits too many. Specially if all involved aren't punished by harshest possible means.

Sure. But the original question was: do you think that that should worry regular folks more than the evil and abuse perpetrated by their own government?

> Then you should get out more and talk to some real people.

There's a difference between it being a concern for everyone and everyone being concerned by it.

It's by far much more likely than my own government doing anything close to it yes.

Most people in the world do not live under your government.

I'm not worried about most people, I'm worried about the people that the USA does go after, because the USA usually goes after good people who rightfully criticized what they're doing.

> USA usually goes after good people who rightfully criticized what they're doing

With drone strikes and disappearings?! Wow! Do you have an example?

The USA does drone strikes all the time, not only against minor targets, but with egregious collateral damage. Listing examples isn't even worth the energy because this is common knowledge and a simple google search would reveal hundreds if not thousands of these killings.

It was US Military leaks via WikiLeaks that first got Julian Assange onto the USA's hit list, and if and when they get their hands on him, they will make him disappear into a gruesome privatized prison system where he will have no right to be heard, because he published things the government didn't want people to know about.

I don't care if I, personally, will fall victim to this. Trusting the USA is a stupid thing to do, and you have to accept that they are capable of doing a great deal of harm to anyone they want to, regardless of nationality.

Julian Assange wasn't drone striked nor disappeared. (Although I do not approve of US's treatment of him either)

Again, do you have an actual example of "good people" being drone striked or disappeared by the US?

I'm sorry, but are we both talking about france here? The "coup d'etat and murder anyone in Africa that goes against my wannabe reboot of a colonial empire," or is it the "bomb Greenpeace ships in foreign countries" France? If we are being honest, the intelligence services of France have proved to be much less accountable and much, much less constrained by pretty much anyone. It's also completely willing to do the bidding of any corporation the French government's "dirigisme" deems worthy enough to assassinate a few Africans for.

The big difference between France and the USA is that the French people usually either passively or actively support them and do not see any problem with what they are doing and would much rather look at the evil Americans. It's not even a political issue, it's almost seen as a divine right.

That's literally one of the main reason macron has been popular: his wannabe bonapartist "great France" mindset (and even those who dislike him don't usually criticize him on that front) that involves crushing the ennemies of France, and a whole lot of illusions of grandeur.

It's also a country where the literal neonazi FN still gets 40% of the votes, but people still laugh about dumb Americans because they voted for trump. Keep in mind, the only reason we don't see more french droning in Africa is because they lack the ability to do so.

And I'm not American or French, but I've had a lot of first hand experience with the damage France is causing in Africa and I'm very familiar with French culture. Yet I'm almost always amazed by the extent of French grandstanding online.

> I wonder who are people more afraid of exposing their private information to: the USA or their own government.

The USA, because, at least in principle, every individual has some manner of influence over his own government.

But, reversely, every individual's own government has a much bigger influence on the individual than the US government has.

The USA, of course. Don't forget you vote for your government, not for Google's CEO.

Google's CEO has pretty much ZERO powers over me. The USA government is (largely) democratic and (mostly) obeys laws. But my government... is not the one I voted for and I trust it 0%.

Because I do not live in the West but in one of the great majority of countries with a corrupt, abusive government. The democratic governments of the West are the exception, not the rule.

> The USA government is (largely) democratic

Well, if I may nitpick, it's a federal republic rather than a democracy...

More to the point though, there was this study at Princeton U about the correlation between US government policy and popular opinion on a variety of subjects which found that public opinion correlates very poorly with government policy / legislation passed, but opinions among the very-rich correlate well. Can't remember the exact reference right now.

> and (mostly) obeys laws.

Oh, definitely not. It can well be argued that there is constant mass violation of the constitution. And regardless of this, the US is such a notorious outlaw on the international level that not only does it refuse to accept jurisdiction of the international criminal court, but has in fact threatened action against court staff if the court hears any case against it:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/15/us-threatens-internation...

Still infinitely better than my government though, which was the whole point.

The effect you mentioned (democratic deficit) is also inversely correlated with unionization (which positively correlates with public engagement with government). So it could be that the reduction in population median household income due to reduction in unionization (and increase in top earner profit / larger inequalities) causes an exacerbation of the effect, with the observation you mentioned.

Under communism unionisation was pretty much complete - but that did not make the dictatorship a democracy by any means.

> it's a federal republic rather than a democracy...

Germany is both a federal republic and a democracy and I would argue the the USA are too. Both countries ultimatively derive their legislation from the general populace and are representative democracies.

I've seen the claim you made several times, but every time I try to look it up I fail to understand it.

What is your reason to think a federal republic would exclude democracy?

Yes this seems to be a common distinction made in the US, which I also don't understand. What I learned in politics at school (and studying it for a short time) was that republic and democracy are orthogonal concepts (leds leave out the federal which seems to be even another dimension).

A republic essentially means, the state doesn't have a king (head of state by inheritancel, but some sort of president which gets elected in some way (not necessary by the population). A democracy is a category of how decisions get made, i.e. by some vote of the people (demos).

Is there some subtlety I'm missing or is this thing about "federal Republic not democracy" something just always repeated, without properly understanding it. .

"The government has a defect. It's potentially democratic.

Corporations have no defect - They're pure tyrannies."

- Noam Chomsky

Still waiting for those "pure tyrannies". Meanwhile every damn thing I am using in my daily life, from my car, computer to the furnace heating my house - was made by a corporation.

And I did live under communism, with absolutely zero corporations. Then I knew tyranny every day. And shortages.

Did Noam Chomsky live under communism by any chance?

The fact that you lived under a bad government, while sad, doesn't invalidate Noam's statement.

Maybe. But the fact that we haven't encountered those "pure tyrannies" anywhere sure does.

I won't dive into details, but please consider that maybe you're not recognizing them.

Considering I lived under a tyranny, I should be fairly qualified to recognize one if I see it.

But I can always be wrong, so I am open to examples.

The french service should expose user information to the French government either. If the government has a public warrant for that information, then opinions might differ about whether or not it is legitimate for the website operators to oblige.

As a US analog, I'm more concerned with my own government collecting data on me than I am about the Chinese. One of those has an entire ocean to cross to cause me IRL problems.

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