[HN Gopher] Berlin Approves New Expansion of Police Surveillance...
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Berlin Approves New Expansion of Police Surveillance Powers
Author : robtherobber
Score : 136 points
Date : 2025-12-12 15:29 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reclaimthenet.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (reclaimthenet.org)
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Spit balling now ... I just feel like the years have rolled on by
| so quickly now, that we've aged out of all of the lessons we had
| to learn before. And now we're going to have to learn them all
| over again.
| znort_ wrote:
| we ought to stop these decadent crooks from plunging us into
| fascism and war just to rescue their waning privilege (again),
| but somehow i don't think we will. so, yeah, lessons to be
| relearned ahead.
| mothballed wrote:
| Classical liberalism is a rare blip of an exception in the
| history of civilization. As Milton Friedman says, and I
| paraphrase, it's quite remarkable it happened in the first
| place, but there's no real guarantee those conditions might
| ever arise again and no real expectation that it's realistic to
| think it will be recreated again in any particular desired
| timespan.
| mmooss wrote:
| So is most technology, widespread literacy, health, freedom,
| etc. In fact, everything since we were nomadic hunter-
| gatherers is a blip - should we go back to that? The argument
| makes no sense; what force is compelling us to go back to
| hunting and gathering? It's absurd to raise this argument for
| inevitability, rather than do something about it - which has
| worked overwhelmingly for generations.
| mothballed wrote:
| I'm not arguing you shouldn't do something about it. I'm a
| bit of a dreamer myself; I've basically carved out a life
| in a super rural area with almost no government -- but at
| the same time I like to be aware of the thoughts of great
| philosophers like Friedman and the history of this sort of
| liberalism and use it to my advantage. Knowing what I've
| stated has allowed me to deal with a world where I can't
| expect things to get better, even if I hope they will.
|
| My personal take is you can use Friedman's thoughts to your
| advantage. Be prepared that everything will get much worse.
| And then maybe you can organize your life to minimize your
| interaction with the state in case your efforts don't help.
| mmooss wrote:
| > dreamer
|
| The idea that these are dreams is just part of the anti-
| democratic, anti-freedom rhetoric. You might not mean it
| that way, but look how it's been absorbed widely.
|
| These are concrete realities that have swept across every
| corner of the world, and brought, by orders of magnitude,
| the greatest expansions of human freedom and prosperity
| ever. All in reality, not a dream.
| mothballed wrote:
| This is what I come to HN for. To be called a peddler of
| anti-freedom rhetoric for dreaming of freedom, as a reply
| to single word quote. Because, you know, you're not
| allowed to dream if those dreams have at some point been
| "reality."
| mmooss wrote:
| They are reality, not at some point but right now and for
| generations (depending on where you live).
|
| I'm not talking about you, but the rhetoric, the ideas.
| But another part of the rhetoric is to shift the
| conversation to being a victim, and away from the merits
| of the ideas so one doesn't have to talk about them.
| Heck, looking back, I even took trouble to say it wasn't
| about you.
|
| If you want to insist you embrace those idea, that's your
| problem. Or you could be an independent thinker who
| examines ideas on their merits. That would be the core of
| HN.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Is-ought distinction. Mothballed and Milton are describing
| how things _are_ , not how they _should be_ , which latter
| seems to be your interpretation.
| mmooss wrote:
| No, that's part of their nonsense.
|
| I'm describing how things are. Liberalism, including the
| Enlightenment _is_ , and has been overwhelmingly
| successful in adoption (every corner of the globe, though
| not 100% of the globe), and success. It really does rule
| the world.
|
| Mothballed and Milton are describing how they think
| things ought to be, or inevitably will be (I believe for
| many, the former is their goal, disguised as the latter).
| But that's just theory with no basis (as I pointed out
| earlier).
|
| The idea that the latter is 'real' is laughable. Look at
| the world. The people who built a liberal world order had
| to contend with argument like this - there was little
| precedent. They had to invent much of it in the face of
| skepticism (like every innovator).
|
| But it's absurd, now that it's built, institutionalized,
| and successful and status quo - now that you were born in
| it, fed on it, and live in it and breath it - now that
| all you need to do is pick up the tools that your
| predecessors did the hard work of creating, for you to
| argue that it's somehow not real. Just pick up the tools
| and march forward.
|
| I mean, wow, that is some effective propaganda. It's like
| saying at noon that there's no star in the sky, like
| telling a fish in the ocean that there's no water.
| mothballed wrote:
| It's laughable to think Milton Friedman wasn't picking up
| the tools to try and bring at least the form of freedom
| he envisioned. Most likely, he's done more than you've
| (or I) ever done or ever will do. I could bring out the
| fact I literally fought in a civil war to help retain
| liberalism for some populations, I've been shot at for
| trying to bring liberalism, of course no one will believe
| that and I have nothing to prove, so I'll just let
| whoever wants to believe that is a lie believe that. A
| lot of the people I met, well, they were just killed by
| ISIS, maybe even some of their family trapped behind
| lines of various jihadist militias and things get even
| worse.
|
| It is _because_ I 've "picked up the tools" and seen how
| so often things turn out, that I came to find that
| Milton's words were so accurate. It is a beautiful thing
| when freedom works out. More often than not, it doesn't.
| Sure, you should still try. And then be prepared for the
| possibility things might get even worse.
|
| Milton's assessment was that things have been getting
| progressively less liberal in the USA since at least the
| latter portion of his life. I believe especially so since
| 9/11. The populace keeps _voting harder_ and things just
| get worse. We recently passed a budget bill, which
| magically banned hemp (something ~no one wanted) and
| basically gave gobs of money to politicians for having
| their cell phones monitored in ways the common populace
| constantly has their monitored with no recourse. As time
| goes on, I see the government is getting more leverage
| and the people less and less, I hope it changes and I
| hope people try to change it but I will be prepared for
| the possibility it does not do much good.
|
| I remain prepared for the possibility the initial
| circumstances allowing classical liberalism to come
| about, no longer exist (one of my theories is that in the
| 19th and 18th century violent force was at its most
| decentralized point in history-- the ~modern firearm was
| the pinnacle of warfare and there was not a huge
| difference in effectiveness between a peasent and a
| government conscript which is a huge difference between
| prior times of it taking years to train say an archer or
| modern era where government has fighter jets and
| ballistic missiles -- this meant the general populace had
| as much or more leverage than the government) , and that
| the technological and social landscape are not
| particularly amenable to its recreation. There are a few
| pockets of remarkable freedom in the world -- good on
| them, I hope they keep it and I hope we see more of it.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| > _Mothballed and Milton are describing how they think
| things ought to be, or inevitably will be_
|
| There is again an enormous difference between describing
| _how things ought to be_ and _how things inevitably will
| be_.
|
| > _for you to argue that it 's somehow not real_
|
| Noone was saying that.
| Muromec wrote:
| There is an alternative explaination that you will not like.
|
| Maybe we were _removing_ the proverbal fences all the time and
| are about to learn the hard way to put them back.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| That explanation would only hold water if we were dealing
| right now with all kinds of problems stemming from lack of
| authoritarianism and too much freedom. I'm not really seeing
| it but maybe you have something in mind.
| Muromec wrote:
| At least some people believe we do and vote for it. I'm not
| among those people and I don't hold this position, but
| somehow it gets more and more support lately.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| "about to learn the hard way to put them back" would seem
| to imply you expect some real consequences from the lack
| of "fences".
| lysace wrote:
| Fighting extremist terrorism requires tough measures. This one is
| a bit extra though:
|
| > If the software cannot be deployed remotely, the law authorizes
| officers to secretly enter a person's home to gain access.
|
| Clear _Das Leben der Anderen_ vibes.
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others)
|
| However: As usual, the devil is in the details. How much
| suspicion is required, what's the process, etc. (I assume that a
| judge needs to sign off.)
| danielbln wrote:
| And as always, plenty of oil runs down that slope to make it
| slippery. First it's terrorists, then heavy crime, then petty
| crime, then small things, then it's whoever the powers that be
| don't deem deserving of freedom. We've been down that road on
| Germany, but history rhymes, as the saying goes.
| lysace wrote:
| The slippery slope argument always seemed... slippery, to me.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Ironically, the same people who complain about "slippery
| slopes" become the same people who bemoan the fact that
| American, Chinese, Russian, and even Vietnamese [0][1]
| intelligence operate with de facto impunity in Germany and
| the EU.
|
| Europeans can no longer afford to be the idealists that
| they were in the 2000s. Every country is runnng influence
| ops across Europe to a degree that hasn't been seen since
| the Cold War.
|
| That said, as an American, it's fine for me if Germans and
| Europeans remain naive. An allied Europe is good, but a
| naive but controlled Europe is equally as good. For every
| Atlanticist, we have people who can push our interests in
| an illiberal manner like Dominik Andrzejczuk.
|
| [0] -
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/berlin-
| ki...
|
| [1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-18/vi
| etnam-p...
| mmooss wrote:
| > Europeans can no longer afford to be the idealists that
| they were in the 2000s.
|
| Always the arguments of the enemies of freedom and
| dignity - they are fanciful ideals, not necessities and
| the whole point, and the foundations of the freeest, most
| secure, most prosperous societies in history. Maybe the
| rest of Europe wants to live more like Russia?
| alephnerd wrote:
| The American framing of privacy and free speech
| absolutism doesn't hold much credence in Europe. And it's
| not like the US is much better in that regard.
|
| We in the US are using free speech and privacy absolutism
| as a hammer against the EU's Digital Services Act, which
| they are using as a hammer against our dominance in the
| tech industry and our trade barriers against European
| exports.
|
| For most European nations today, the degree of greyzone
| warfare is startling, and multiple near accidents have
| happened. And even with expanded police and intelligence
| powers like those used in Europe in the 2000s, most
| European nations would _remain_ significantly freer than
| Russia ever was or is.
| mmooss wrote:
| > absolutism
|
| That's a strawperson, not a serious argument. The idea
| that the US is absolutist about privacy is laughable,
| even more when compared to Europe. Free speech is falling
| apart rapidly. Europe is the central advocate of human
| rights currently.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Europe is the central advocate of human rights
| currently
|
| The European definition of human rights doesn't include a
| maximalist approach to privacy. The primacy of state
| powers is a core bedrock in mainstream European thought,
| as can be seen with EU Charter Article 8.
|
| Hybrid warfare tactics such as those being used by Russia
| within the EU [0] along with other sorts of offensive
| intelligence operations would fall under the remit of an
| expansion of state enforcement and coexist with the EU
| Charter.
|
| Furthermore, as I previously stated, this kind of
| empowerment of law enforcement and intelligence agencies
| was the norm across much of the EU (and still is in
| Southern and Eastern European member states) until the
| 2010s.
|
| [0] - https://acleddata.com/report/testing-waters-
| suspected-russia...
| mmooss wrote:
| > The European definition of human rights doesn't include
| a maximalist approach to privacy.
|
| Who said it does? That's a strawperson.
| nabnob wrote:
| What are you calling "extremist terrorism"?
| lysace wrote:
| E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Berlin_truck_attack
| (13+1 deaths, 56 injured)
| josefritzishere wrote:
| That was almost 10 years ago. That does not an existential
| threat make.
| lysace wrote:
| There have been a number of similar attacks in Germany
| since. There are no signs of this stopping.
|
| Noone claimed it was an existential threat.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| Fair statement but it is generally accepted that
| extraordinary measures, like extraordinary claims require
| extreme evidence. That's just not the case here. To
| paraphrase Ben Frnaklin "Those who would give up liberty,
| to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither
| liberty nor safety." I think the corollary is that we
| actually get neither liberty nor safety.
| lysace wrote:
| _but it is generally accepted that extraordinary
| measures, like extraordinary claims require extreme
| evidence_
|
| I think you also don't know what kind of evidence this
| new legislation requires.
| sapientiae3 wrote:
| The interesting thing is that the laws being created to
| protect against such extreme attacks will be used against
| the people when they are controlled by an extreme group.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| And, to put it more explicitly, against the people who
| were manipulated into fearing the "extremist" threat in
| the first place.
| mmooss wrote:
| That's how radicalization works, a pretty well-defined
| tactic as I understand it:
|
| How do you get free, prosperous, safe people to give all
| that up for what you offer? It sounds almost impossible.
| You manufacture fear and division - look at terrorism, or
| the uses of demonization in many places - and then they
| may be willing to change.
|
| Remember that Eisenhower said, 'the only thing we have to
| fear is fear itself'. Eisenhower, who led the militaries
| of West through arguably the greatest crisis in their
| history, who was leading the West through the Cold War.
| He knew crisis, and that is what he said. That's what
| genuine leaders do.
|
| Those who use spread fear and radicalization are not
| after security and freedom, but after power.
| brikym wrote:
| Then why do they put Merkel's lego (concrete blocks) at
| every winter market now?
| breppp wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgknpzrkyvno
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/01/germany-
| summon...
|
| https://www.euractiv.com/news/germany-arrests-syrian-
| suspect...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/05/suspected-
| memb...
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/germany-police-detain-man-in-anti-
| terr...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Yes. Who decides? Can the police just decide at will? Do they
| need a warrant?
|
| Secret access to plant bugs is how the FBI beat the mafia in
| the US in many cases in the 80s and 90s. But there were strict
| rules.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Most likely under the same tests the the G10 Act has.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| The big shift is that law enforcement now has to do their job,
| instead of trying to make tech companies do their job.
|
| Even more important: The cost of surveillance this way is very
| high. It's not practical to perform massive surveillance this
| way, so it requires a reason for targeted surveillance.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Law enforcement and intelligence agencies across Europe were
| given de facto impunity due to Cold War era policies that
| were then rolled back in the 2010s.
|
| In 2025-26, the threat profile that most European countries
| face is comparable in scale to what was the norm during the
| Cold War, except now most Western European intelligence and
| law enforcement agencies are not allowed to use the same
| tools they used to use barely 15 years ago.
|
| As an American, it's fine for me if Germans and Europeans
| remain naive. An allied Europe is good, but a naive but
| controlled Europe is equally as good. For every Atlanticist,
| we have people who can push our interests in an illiberal
| manner like Dominik Andrzejczuk.
|
| For every Vance, we got a Nuland, and American views on
| Europe began shifting all the way back in 2011 [0] (for all
| you guys who will spew the "Politico is Axel Springer" crap,
| this article is from 2011 - 13 years before the acquisition):
| "Europeans should be particularly concerned that a strong
| majority of Americans under the age of 45 now see Asia as
| more important than Europe" in 2011.
|
| > The cost of surveillance this way is very high. It's not
| practical to perform massive surveillance this way, so it
| requires a reason for targeted surveillance
|
| Not really. Data warehousing with cold/hot storage along with
| basic statistical analysis and inference has become cheap.
| And even local police departments can afford a $50k-$100k
| annual contract to work with red teams on bespoke exploit
| development.
|
| [0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-
| backs-o...
| lysace wrote:
| The cost aspect and its consequences: That's a good insight.
| perihelions wrote:
| The explanation is deceptively unclear, IMO. What's being
| authorized is _court-ordered searches_ of a type that were
| previously prohibited, even for courts to authorize, by strict
| privacy laws. The US has always had the power to conduct these
| searches [0]; the "inviolability of the home" human dignity
| concept doesn't exist in the US. (I'll defer to German people to
| explain this concept).
|
| As explained in heise.de[1] (in German) about a parallel law
| being enacted in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
|
| > _" For the online search, the deputies now also grant the law
| enforcement the right to secretly enter and search apartments_
| with judicial permission."
|
| [0] e.g. https://www.npr.org/2011/08/02/138916011/home-visits-
| and-oth... ( _" Home Visits And Other 'Secrets Of The FBI'"_)
|
| [1] https://www.heise.de/news/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern-
| Durchsuchun...
| mmooss wrote:
| > the "inviolability of the home" human dignity concept doesn't
| exist in the US.
|
| Maybe not under that term, but for example, almost the only
| place an American's 4th Amendment protections against search
| and seizure apply is in their home. Law enforcement can search
| their garbage at the curb, monitor their [edit: public]
| movements via camera and license plate monitoring, etc., look
| them up online, all without warrants [*]. They can't do that in
| someone's home.
|
| [*] I'm pretty sure no warrant is required to search curbside
| trash or do most online research.
| hrimfaxi wrote:
| The trash search thing varies by state at least.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The boundaries of your "home" varies by State. For example,
| in some States the interior of your car is part of your home
| even when not at home, which occasionally has entertaining
| implications.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > the interior of your car is part of your home
|
| Especially when you exclusively enter and exit the car
| inside your garage! /s
| jeffbee wrote:
| This article is not about warrantless searches of homes,
| though. In America, courts can and do order the police to
| secretly enter a domicile and install surveillance devices.
| elcritch wrote:
| It also appears this Herman law allows "no knock" search
| warrants, which in the US are generally considered more
| serious and more restricted.
| perihelions wrote:
| The distinction here is whether police can _secretly_ enter a
| home to plant bugs, &c. In the US, this is routine; in
| Germany, this is (was?) taboo.
|
| (FYI, you can escape * as \\* to get it to display as *).
| mmooss wrote:
| Thanks for the tip!
| andrepd wrote:
| Is this even practical anymore? A non-technical person can
| set up video surveillance on their home for a couple
| hundred bucks. Why wouldn't a criminal do that? I think the
| days of the FBI planting a microphone in a lamp on Tony
| Soprano's basement are over.
| fragmede wrote:
| I read in the papers that the cheap cameras are over
| wifi, so thieves are using wifi jammers to take them
| offline during the heist.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It's hard to set up video surveillance in your home
| without inadvertently providing much of the surveillance
| data the law enforcement officers were after, especially
| for non-technical people.
| breppp wrote:
| The FBI has an array of readymade zero day exploits, it
| is probably able to handle Tony Sporano's Chinese
| knockoff video survelliance
| tptacek wrote:
| I think the "inviolability" thing is useful just to
| understand what's actually happening here, but it's also
| important to understand that the US and Germany have very
| different criminal justice, search, and evidentiary systems.
| Germany doesn't have an exclusionary rule for evidence, for
| instance.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| It's so frustrating that every other comment in this thread is
| people giving their pet opinion about the headline and what it
| means about the state of the world / the inherent
| authoritarianism of Germany / whatever, and nobody else is
| commenting on the contents.
|
| The controversial measures the article lists are things like:
|
| > _Police may now install state-developed spyware, known as
| trojans, on personal devices to intercept messages before or
| after encryption. If the software cannot be deployed remotely,
| the law authorizes officers to secretly enter a person's home
| to gain access._
|
| > _The revised law also changes how police use body cameras.
| Paragraph 24c permits activation of bodycams inside private
| homes when officers believe there is a risk to life or limb._
|
| Those seem like... pretty reasonable things for the police to
| do, presuming it has a warrant? And if the law authorizes doing
| these things without warrants, maybe the article should have
| lead with that?
|
| Ctrl+F-ing "warrant" in the article doesn't give me any result,
| which makes me feel this article isn't very serious.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Sounds like horrible overreach to me, even if such activities
| are legal in America (when did American police become the
| gold standard that Europe needs to emulate???!!)
|
| Seriously, searching your home with a warrant is one thing.
| Doing it secretly without the homeowner knowing about it
| afterwards is some Stasi shit. Are they going to steal your
| dirty underwear too? And installing malware on the computers
| of people merely suspected of a crime is even more insane.
| try_the_bass wrote:
| > And installing malware on the computers of people merely
| suspected of a crime is even more insane.
|
| But it's not "merely suspected"! It's "suspected with
| enough evidence to convince a judge to issue the warrant".
| These are completely different things, and to intentionally
| confound the two is wildly disingenuous.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I don't see how that's much better; a judge is just one
| guy and he's only hearing the cops' side of the story
| since you aren't allowed to know you've been accused, let
| alone present your side of the story.
| mbg721 wrote:
| While that's true, if the cops are too egregious too
| often, the judge starts to doubt their stories.
| astro1138 wrote:
| After decades of a liberal and left senate, Berliners reelected
| CDU who bankrupted Berlin 25 years ago.
| woodpanel wrote:
| hehehe, this made me chuckle. 25 years of hard-core socialists
| running the show, and all of a sudden its the conservatives
| that ruined Berlin. that is rich. It's even funnier when
| considering the Landerfinanzausgleich (Equalization payments
| between federal states): Basically within those 25 years
| Berlin, under those financially savvy and responsible leftists,
| amassed 95 B EUR in payments from all other German Federal
| States. [0]
|
| [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A4nderfinanzausgleich
| mickelsen wrote:
| The Berlin airport fiasco was absolutely on the left-wing
| government.
| ndr wrote:
| Yet another step towards Turnkey Totalitarianism
|
| https://creativetimereports.org/2013/06/25/surveillance-and-...
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I wonder why so many governments have such high anxiety right
| now. They're all acting like the sky is falling. Don't they know
| what happens to most of the chickens in Chicken Little?
| mothballed wrote:
| Can't imagine why they'd be anxious.
|
| Life is a negotiation. What the populace brings to the table is
| they will _vote harder next time_ or maybe a little bit of
| protests, but mostly just do what they 're told and carry on
| with their jobs and pray things get better. What the government
| bring is fighter jets and guns and career civil servants who
| have had a lifetime of training how to fuck you, the might and
| wishes of the rich and powerful, and lording power by taxing
| you then redistributing it back as benefits that then feel
| depended upon.
|
| If you enter the negotiating table with a sociopath and expect
| them not to steamroll you when you openly show you have far
| worse cards, then you're not thinking clearly. Insanity is
| thinking you can keep bringing the same things to the
| negotiation table and getting different results.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > Can't imagine why they'd be anxious.
|
| Me neither, especially since the adults are back in charge in
| the US.
| jerf wrote:
| In a nutshell, the sovereign debt crisis. If you don't realize
| there's a sovereign debt crisis (ongoing across years), or even
| more accurately, a wide variety of sovereign debt crises, or
| even more accurately, a wide variety of debt crises of both
| sovereign and private entities, well, your governments and some
| of the more government-adjacent private entities have bent a
| lot of resources into make sure that's the case and convincing
| that it's just peachy when they borrow money, if not outright a
| boon, without regard to how much they borrow or how much
| they've already borrowed. They may have convinced you that this
| is true, but they know better.
|
| Whatever happens and however it resolves, there aren't a lot of
| options where they retain as much power as they have now for
| very long. (Even if the top people maintain control they're
| going to be cutting loose a lot of lower level elites because
| they'll have to because they won't be able to maintain their
| upkeep.) The wheel turns and we're in that phase where they're
| still in power, but have begun to feel their decline. Human
| psychology fears and feels loss much more keenly than gain and
| they both fear and feel a lot of loss of power underneath the
| veneer they maintain.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| My theory for your downvotes - even though you are _directly
| over the target_ - is that folks in Europe would rather blame
| Russia than address the very real dysfunction in their own
| societies. In fact, I tend to think that the degree to which
| an individual blames Russia is directly related to their
| failure to take responsibility for the crimes and misdeeds of
| their own state.
| barrenko wrote:
| European governments anxious yet refuse switch to wartime
| production...
| AngryData wrote:
| Perhaps its because people are realizing a lot of economic and
| financial activity is kind of useless for anything besides
| pumping the numbers of stocks and valuations and a larger
| fraction of money is going towards the already wealthy while
| the majority are losing out. And when financial bubbles start
| popping and economies fall flat on their faces there is going
| to be a lot of angry people.
|
| People saying eat the rich and posting guillotines and
| supporting socialist redistribution ideas use to be kind of
| edgy and fringe, but now it is gaining popular appeal again,
| and it makes people with wealth or political power scared.
| cess11 wrote:
| Several reasons. For one we've broken the climate and poisoned
| our habitat, this will for sure cause major problems for
| existing power structures. We're not sure when, just that it
| will, eventually. There will be massive amounts of refugees and
| unemployment, as well as strongly argued and broadly supported
| demands for accountability.
|
| For another we've definitely decided to not put effort into
| international law and instead run with a might-makes-right kind
| of ethics in international relations. One sign that this was
| the case was the US repeatedly perpetrating the crime of
| aggression in the early 2000s, another was the ethnic cleansing
| of Nagorno Karabakh/Artsakh in 2023, as well as ongoing
| genocidal and similar campaigns in e.g. Sudan, DR Congo and
| likely the Caribbean and/or South America in the future.
| Ukraine is yet another example. Currently China is probably the
| last major country to heavily prioritise money and trade over
| atrocities and tribute.
|
| Then there's the future of technology. Software has been
| treading water since the seventies while at the same time
| promising to deliver some utopian revolution anytime now.
| Sometimes it's promised to war machines, like GOFAI often was,
| sometimes it's promised to the general public, usually it
| doesn't deliver outside of making either legal conflict (i.e.
| commerce, political participation and the like) or illegal
| conflict (i.e. mafia, non-parliamentary/autonomous political
| participation, and the like) and the state response more
| efficient and intense.
|
| Some in power expect computers to replace labour on a massive
| scale sometime soon, in part because that's a promise that has
| been made. Some also expect computerised fake persons and
| marketing-adjacent technologies to finally make democratic
| ambitions impossible to realise. It's also expected that people
| will have to be kept in their place for other, more mundane
| reasons.
|
| Climate protests, anti-genocide protests and so on show that
| people are still willing to put themselves in harms way for
| some ethical purpose and hope for a decent future. This is very
| scary if you're a contemporary world leader, because there is
| this harsh disconnect between the stories you tell yourself and
| others in a similar position about what you do and how you're
| perceived by your constituents. Basically they think they're
| doing their best and that's admirable, and the rest of us think
| they're shit and deserve to be harshly punished.
|
| There's also the spectre of history. Once upon a time ordinary
| people took a lot of power for themselves, and sometimes they
| just murdered their leaders. Dragged them out on a town square
| and chopped their heads off, or shot them or beat them with
| bamboo until they died. When the conditions look like it might
| be time for revolution and you're the one holding the levers of
| power you get scared. The might-makes-right-states are also
| scary, because those that haven't made the jump already don't
| have a bloc that backs them up, unlike the socialist states and
| the capitalist ones and the third world collective did way back
| when.
|
| So, we're in a hurry to figure out how to make sure local
| populations cannot revolt, and next up is to figure out whether
| there are actually any allies or whether this is a war of all
| against all.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| The sky is falling for a lot of the EU/Europe. They have
| massive social programs they can't afford and economies that
| aren't growing anymore. There is another Eurozone crisis
| approaching and there doesn't seem to be the political will or
| the acceptance by the people on what needs to happen to stop
| it.
|
| Even small steps to delay it like in France lead to near open
| revolt.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| What is it about German culture that makes authoritarianism so
| popular?
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Germans love rules and hate those who don't (source: scolded by
| several Germans while travelling there)
| qwertox wrote:
| Why don't you share what you did to get scolded by several
| Germans and I will explain to you why.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| 1. While waiting to be seated at a bistro, I grabbed a menu
| off a table to see what they had for food. Waiter who was
| ignoring me saw that and instantly scolded me in front of
| the entire restaurant saying that is their job.
|
| 2. An alpine train was coming by and I was doing the fist
| pump in the air to get them to honk the horn. A random
| stranger said that my actions were unwelcome and that
| trains are serious business.
|
| 3. When on bikes I did a skid stop to make my wife laugh, a
| random stranger said I shouldn't do that.
|
| 4. At the airport, I had to pour out water before going
| through the security checkpoint. There was no bin to pour
| out water so I just poured it out in the garbage. A random
| stranger got quite upset and said the water does not go in
| the garbage.
|
| Not to mention all of the very unfriendly interactions I
| had with locals. Honestly will probably never go back,
| people are so much more friendly and laid back elsewhere
| which is more my style.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| As a German myself, that list is surprising. The only one
| I could imagine is 4., because the bins generally aren't
| watertight, so you're essentially spilling water on the
| floor which will make a mess for everyone. And there are
| always places to pour the water it's just usually at the
| entrance of the terminal ... Which is obviously dumb, cuz
| nobody is going to go back to them after they've already
| queued to get in.
|
| But 1-3? You must've really gotten unlucky...
|
| 1 I could only imagine in expensive restaurants,
|
| 2. I am seriously surprised by, because while the person
| manning the train would almost always ignore you, so
| would everyone else - no matter what kind of gesture you
| do.
|
| And 3... While I cannot fathom doing that on purpose
| myself, I'm extremely surprised anyone would bother
| interacting with anyone about that? Definitely doesn't
| reflect my experience living here for roughly 40 yrs
| mickelsen wrote:
| Yup, they love their rules and procedures.
|
| And it's funny, because the first thought they have if
| you get fined (say you didn't include the impressum in
| your personal website, or nosy neighbor found you mowing
| the lawn on sunday), it's that you must have done
| something wrong, not that the law is unfair.
|
| It's a Rechtsstaat with hardcore legal-positivist brain.
| Rules aren't guidelines, intent doesn't matter, context
| doesn't matter, fun definitely doesn't matter.
| Cpoll wrote:
| Calling it "German authoritarianism" risks thinking it's a
| localized phenomenon or special case. But it seems more like a
| regression to the global mean. Most of these expansions are
| things that have been on the front page of HN, but in reference
| to the US: cell tower queries, facial recognition, license
| plate harvesting, long detention periods without being charged,
| etc.
| jack_tripper wrote:
| _> Calling it "German authoritarianism" risks thinking it's a
| localized phenomenon or special case._
|
| It very much is though. Plenty of other countries in EU like
| France or Romania for example but probably many more, don't
| have even remotely as many authoritarian and invasive BS laws
| as Germany does.
|
| But the worst part is that Germans have gaslit themselves to
| think that their authoritarian laws are there "for their own
| protection". They don't even realize they have a problem,
| until they move and live abroad and learn you can run a
| country without your government have so many surveillance and
| speech control powers over what you can do or say in public
| about their leaders.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Just some data to give a little bit of context, however
| flawed or reductive it may be..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices#List_
| o...
| jack_tripper wrote:
| I don't really care what some arbitrary number on
| Wikipedia tells me about the freedom of a country I know
| quite well, as long as I am unable to insult my political
| leaders on the internet for their fuckups or say that _'
| Israel is an apartheid state committing genocide'_,
| without police later knocking on my door to arrest me for
| "hate speech" or "far right extremism", I consider the
| freedom score of that country to be ZERO. This is mostly
| a UK, Germany and Austria exclusive issue in the EU-zone
| and not an EU widespread issue quite yet, but boy they
| sure are trying to get everyone at that same level.
|
| Any scientist will tell you to not to look at the end
| data, but to look at the formula used to calculate the
| result and the way in which the data for the study was
| gathered. That's what's most important.
|
| Depending on what your formula and data is, you can get
| to any arbitrary result you want, which is how scientists
| also had studies in the 1950s saying that smoking was
| good for your health.
| godelski wrote:
| > Any scientist will tell you
|
| The number of people, including scientists, who treat
| algorithms as black boxes is incredibly concerning. The
| math is meaningless without interpretation, and that
| requires understanding what goes into the scores.
|
| That said, why would anyone think such scores could be a
| reasonably accurate representation? You are aggregating
| such complex situations and with that you kill off
| nuance. It doesn't mean the scores are useless, but need
| to be used carefully. I mean even look at the chart and
| you'll see weird things pop out. Ireland is ranked 5th by
| the "Freedom in the World" Index and falls into the
| highest binning for all 3 categories: economic freedom,
| press freedom, democracy. Yet New Zealand is 3rd, falling
| into the second bins for economic and press freedom.
| Further down you see the US below Argentina yet the US's
| scores are significantly higher than Argentina in each
| other category and the US is tied with Mongolia (who has
| a major problem with Press Freedom).
|
| It should be quite clear that these scores are missing a
| lot of important details. Like the US definitely has
| problems with Freedom of Speech (and growing) but you can
| call Trump and Clinton pedos on the internet all day and
| nothing will happen to you[0]. Nuance is needed and
| treating these indexes as black boxes is just harmful to
| a conversation about freedom.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04vqldn42go
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| What a load of bullshit you can't even insult politicians
| in Germany. Their score should 0 and that goes for a lot
| of Europe especially the UK.
| jack_tripper wrote:
| German history and culture was always about following rules and
| following a strong figure of authority, whether that be someone
| with a toothbrush moustache or someone making diamond hands.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| In my opinion its: Village life. Germany is a state of small
| villages/towns/cities/city-states, interconnected with fairly
| productive lines of communication - but it is very easy to live
| ones entire life in a German village and never leave.
|
| At village scales, authoritarianism is given more credence by
| the individual because ones life boundaries are reduced to the
| immediate environment, which is not really sustainable without
| structured hierarchy.
|
| Incidentally, this is also a factor in why American's adopt
| authoritarianism so rapidly as well - spending 3 hours of ones
| life in a bubble, on the freeway, commuting, is extremely
| damaging to ones psyche. Road-rage and neighbor hatred abound
| in such circumstances.
|
| The solution to authoritarianism is travel beyond ones bounds.
| The roots of totalitarian-authoritarianism grow deeply in the
| desire to be free of the 'filth of others' - once you expand
| your horizons to embrace that 'filth of others', through travel
| and cultural interaction, that 'filth of others' becomes 'the
| flavor of others' instead.
|
| This is easily demonstrated: talk to a German who has never
| left their home town/talk to a German who regularly visits
| vastly different parts of the world. You will see the
| authoritarian in the former, but the libertarian in the latter.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| This seems a bit incoherent, there must be a real reason for
| them to start thinking the "filth of others" has some basis
| in reality...
|
| It couldn't have arisen just randomly or on a lark.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| The "filth of others" can be described in as many ways as a
| human might use to justify their elevation of one tribe
| over the degradation of another.
|
| Look at it critically - whenever you encounter a
| totalitarian-authoritarian personality bloviating about
| "those people over there" (others), its usually based on
| the totalitarian mechanism of 'avoiding affinity with
| attributes considered unsavoury' (filth).
|
| This concept has other applications. If you have two
| villages, separated perhaps by a near-insurmountable
| mountain or lake, or if one of those villages raises cows
| while the other raises goats - this is usually the basis of
| the formation of a new dialect, accent, or indeed entirely
| new language. However, when civilization occurs and those
| two villages merge into a broader community, that language
| changes to become a unity.
|
| This is observable at an individual level, too. Any
| unacknowledged or under-recognized
| similarities/identities/differences between two or more
| entities will inevitably be used to justify segregation of
| those entities. The solution, as always, is to identify
| similarities/identities/differences in a cohesive manner -
| this is anathema to the totalitarian-authoritarian
| personality, who is usually pretty stubborn about
| enforcing, in totality, those under-acknowledged facets.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| I don't see how this addresses the issue of there being
| an underlying real reason?
|
| Of course the reason then subsquently can be inflated,
| conflated, mixed together strangely, contorted, etc...
| I'm not doubting that.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| The underlying reason is a lack of cultural fluidity, or
| in other words, an over-abundance of cultural rigidity,
| which manifests as a desire to be free of other cultures.
|
| The most effective antidote to totalitarian-
| authoritarianism is a one-way ticket to somewhere
| distant.
|
| German villages, as comfortable as they are, don't really
| promote this antidote.
| brikym wrote:
| Libertarian is not always better. A Goldilocks position is
| the best. Change is okay but you must first understand why
| boundaries and norms were created (Chesterton's fence).
| Extremely tolerant people also allow authoritarian cultures
| to settle, create enclaves and outnumber their own culture
| which is a bit of an own goal.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Have you ever noticed how often Germans online like to say _"
| That's not how we do it in Germany..."_ _" We don't do that in
| Germany..."_ _" In Germany we..."_ ?
|
| Germans seem to have a cultural thing going on where they think
| the way they do things is the most logical and correct way, and
| think they're doing everybody else a favor by telling them how
| things are meant to be done. In fairness, so do Americans. But,
| for instance, I never hear this shit from the French.
| submeta wrote:
| Totalitarism slowly advancing in Europe. Recently I read an
| article about leftist groups and orgs being debanked. One of them
| is Huseyin Dogru, a Turkish/German journalist. German government
| acknowledges it, but can't see any problem with it as they hold
| the opinion that private banks can do whatever they want.
|
| You are labelled ,,Putin versteher" (someone who sides with
| Putin) or criticise Israel (in which case you are labelled
| antisemitic), and once you are labelled that way, you have fallen
| out of grace. And can be targeted or beaten on a demonstration
| brutally by police forces, or, debanked.
| submeta wrote:
| The moment you mention Israel on this platform, you are
| systematically downvoted. Not only on this platform. From corp
| media to social networks. From BBC who dares not use the word
| Genocide. To HN, where you are downvoted to oblivion the moment
| you say Israel is a genocidal racist apartheid regime.
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