• 0 Posts
  • 49 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: August 11th, 2023

help-circle






  • All news will be biased, but a news source that doesn’t make it’s bias clear (probably for general status quo) can be harder to pick out where it’s bias is influencing what it says, or doesn’t, and how it says it and the weight it gives to what.

    To hit at the root of your question: most people further left than Centre Left want to see large systemic change to the systems we live in. Centrists are generally happy with the systems in theory and think that they need small tweaks for better results, not wholesale root and branch change to economic structures.







  • Surveillance isn’t new. The ruling powers have surveilled as much as they can throughout history, although prior to the advent of mechanic computers to tabulate census data (which insurance companies started doing first iirc, to make more money by charging appropriate premiums and charging personalised rates) it was hard to do it on any scale in a remotely timely manner.

    It was done to “aid in ruling”, to know the mood of the people and to nip seccession and unrest in the bud. You didn’t want a Catholic/Puritan/Rival claimant group to be able to establish itself and pose of threat, not to speak of foreign intrigue.

    Now a days, with the second (now possibly even third telecommunications revolution) surveillance on a individual is possible to a level of granularity in effectively real time never before deemed possible.

    We have yet to really see what this means as the powers in every country have held back on the use of these new powers in order to not alienate or scare the populace. Yes, even in the PRC they hold back allowing people to send critical messages in private - reserving the data based crack down on people who dare to publicly share such thoughts or work on organising.

    But despite that, for all the nations with control over their data networks, the goal is the same: preservation of the power structure. Systems are self preserving, and stopping the people without a say or power over the system making large alterations is the primary goal. Be it couched in terms of “anti-terrorism”, anti-subversion", “treachery”, “public safety”, “morality” or the like.