• Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    2 days ago

    It has nothing to do with Asia, but with a totalitarian regime. Such mass surveillance is what dictators do. I could also have said old east Germany, the USSR, Russia, the US, Turkmenistan, El salvador. It’s just that I chose north Korea as it is currently one of the worst and most known today.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      Except it’s not what they’re doing. It’s what the EU is doing. Westerners just assume that they’re always “the good guys”, and whenever they do something bad the most they can muster up is “this is something 'the bad guys” would do!"

      You’re looking at something being done by the EU and immediately pivot to attacking other countries

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 days ago

        Because I don’t want the EU to change in a totalitarian regime. I want to be the good guys but I’m disgusted by our support of Israel, I’m disgusted by our predatory trade deals with developing countries, etc. So I know we’re not he good guys. But I want to be, and I want to keep/make the EU a nice place to live in. So I do compare certain extreme proposals to countries where you’d expect certain things to happen, so people will understand we don’t want to go in that direction. We should always strive to do better. But we also have a dictatorship inside the EU (Hungary) so it’s not all happy days het either. We should just steer away from this instead of incorporate it into the entire EU.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          2 days ago

          So I know we’re not he good guys

          Do you? When you hear about some other country outside of the EU and the West doing something draconian do you find yourself saying “This is something you’d expect in the EU”? Or do you reserve that statement for the designated “bad guy countries”. I don’t think you see the EU as bad guys, I think you see them as "The Good Guys, who are not currently living up to the people they’re supposed to be. Because these labels aren’t based on what countries actually do, they’re based on a per-assigned ontology, where some countries are good and some are bad inherently, and if the former does bad that’s just them falling short of their true nature. So even when they do bad things, those bad things still remain somehow metaphysically of the bad guy country, like saying that a law in the EU is somehow “North Korean” in character.

          So I do compare certain extreme proposals to countries where you’d expect certain things to happen

          I ‘expect’ this kind of thing to happen in the EU, because it does, and it is. You’re once again acting like something being done by “good guy” countries is actually representative of other countries, and not of the EU.

          We should always strive to do better.

          Step one is to stop assuming you’re ontologically the good guys and that any bad things you do is actually just out of character and more like something they’d do in enemy countries.

          But we also have a dictatorship inside the EU

          Yeah, and most of the EU is actively supporting the most brutal regime on Earth in an active genocide. I reject the idea that the EU has a leg to stand on when it comes to accusing other countries of being totalitarian just because it reserves its totalitarian repression for people overseas.

          • Comment105@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 days ago

            Any country that treats fleeing the country as criminal deserves all the hate it can get. North Korea is evil.

            It deserves all criticism and insult, both fair and precise teardowns, and mad sloppy jabs.

          • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            You just attack me based on your assumptions. You are doing exactly what you are accusing me of: You act like you are better than me by making me a bad guy.

            If you think the EU isn’t a better place than the DPRK, you’re free to go there. I do not expect certain things to happen in a free democracy, when we want to keep it a free democracy instead of a totalitarian regime. I’m willing to fight for it and speak out. Giving up all our privacy for mass surveillance doesn’t fit the EU and what it stands for. If you think otherwise, you might not understand the EU.

            I don’t feel like defending attacks based on your assumptions so I’m going to step out of this discussion. There aren’t just good and bad guys, the world is so much more complex than just black and white. You keep on attacking me for thinking “we are the good guys” even though I already said we aren’t. We indeed are better than others and others are better than us. That’s how the world works. But there are no good guys. I try to be become better and help others become better. I don’t look down on others, rather prefer to help them instead. I try to be a good guy but I also make mistakes. I’m only human. But at least I’m doing the best I can.

            I wish you a good day

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 day ago

              You just attack me based on your assumptions.

              No, I’m calling out a behavior I disagree with

              You are doing exactly what you are accusing me of: You act like you are better than me by making me a bad guy.

              That’s not remotely what I was saying, please actually read what I said and make a real effort to understand what I meant.

              If you think the EU isn’t a better place than the DPRK, you’re free to go there.

              I think that we are explicitly talking about something bad the EU is doing. I do also think the DPRK is a much better place to live than Gaza, and the EU supports that. so maybe you should go to Gaza?

              I do not expect certain things to happen in a free democracy

              Well they do, so maybe you should recalibrate your expectations to be based on real life and not the good-guy/bad-guy fiction you apply, so you don’t end up looking at things the EU does and saying “this is something [bad guy country] does!” Also, hard to call it a free democracy when the people you murder overseas don’t’ get to vote, and all of your media is owned by right wing oligarchs.

              I’m willing to fight for it and speak out.

              Doesn’t seem like it, seems like you’re more interested in fighting foreigners.

              I don’t feel like defending attacks based on your assumptions so I’m going to step out of this discussion.

              So you can’t actually defend yourself but are too stubborn to admit it.

              There aren’t just good and bad guys, the world is so much more complex than just black and white.

              Correct, so maybe you should start actually acting like it, rather than splitting the world into the good guys (free democracies) and the bad guys (totalitarian regimes) and treating totalitarian policies of the good guys as some how being ontologically of the bad guy countries that had nothing to do with them.

              though I already said we aren’t.

              Then stop acting like you think you are.

              But there are no good guys.

              Then act like it.

              I don’t look down on others, rather prefer to help them instead.

              That sounds like you look down on them. Do you ever actually entertain the possiblity that anyone might be right outside of “west best” liberals?

              I try to be a good guy but I also make mistakes

              And will you actually change your behavior when your mistakes get pointed out? Or will you double down?

                • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 day ago

                  Incredible how fast you went from:

                  I don’t look down on others, rather prefer to help them instead. I try to be a good guy but I also make mistakes. I’m only human. But at least I’m doing the best I can.

                  to lazy personal attacks and reddit style smarm, when you realized you didn’t actually have a counter argument.

                  • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    1 day ago

                    You base your arguments on assumptions, but stuff I haven’t actually said. I’m not going to argue with your imagination.

                    There clearly is no arguing with you because you constantly change everything I say and you constantly make up stuff. You’re just an internet troll, but I doubt you even see that yourself. Stuff like “it sounds like” and “it looks like” are pseudo science arguments, I’m not going to take that serious.

                    It’s like arguing with a religious person.