Thread

1. laybak · 1790806804 · focus · HN ↗

   the Singaporean government is often described as having a "parental" approach. I guess this move would be on brand

   1. vovavili · 1790809717 · focus · HN ↗

      It's also known as being one of the very few countries actually capable of using state capacity to overcome serious social and economic problems. Godspeed.

      1. jb1991 · 1790811593 · focus · HN ↗

         It's also known as being one of the very few first-world countries actually without basic freedoms, like free speech, freedom of the press, etc.

         1. JumpCrisscross · 1790811765 · focus · HN ↗

            > basic freedoms, like free speech, freedom of the press, etc.

            How is that going for us in the west?

            Like, I believe in these rights. But I also think we should be open to questioning them when we’ve got anti-vaxxers and Holocaust deniers finding popular purchase among an increasingly and proudly illiterate population.

            1. alex43578 · 1790812422 · focus · HN ↗

               The stupidity of some shouldn't be an argument against the rights of everyone.

               1. jacquesm · 1790818289 · focus · HN ↗

                  Until the stupid are in the majority and start curbing your rights. That's one of the main problems with freedom of speech and with democracy as well: they both contain the seeds of their own undoing.
               2. JumpCrisscross · 1790823513 · focus · HN ↗

                  Why not? If every society that embraces a right fails in a similar way, that right should be open to being debated. In a world with social media, I’m not convinced American First-Amendment style (in its ideal form) free speech is as unquestionably good as I once thought it was.

                  1. jb1991 · 1790824488 · focus · HN ↗

                     > If every society that embraces a right fails in a similar way

                     which societies, which failures, which "every" are you referring to, exactly?

                     1. JumpCrisscross · 1790840282 · focus · HN ↗

                        > which societies, which failures, which "every" are you referring to, exactly?

                        I'd argue American society is currently failing. We're losing wars. We're racking up debt. We're destroying our institutions. A decent fraction of the population not only expects civil war, but cheers it on.

                        Meanwhile, in Europe, a similar vein is consistently emerging across the continent. It's done better at resisting. But in part through policing speech.

                        1. alex43578 · 1790844645 · focus · HN ↗

                           Do you think Europe is being successful by those metrics?

                           They're racking up debt too, with worse means to pay it back, they've destroyed both their institutions and their culture via mass migration of unskilled and dissimilar peoples, and they couldn't even fight a war because they can't field the firepower of one US state's national guard base (much less "lose" it, in the ways that people mischaracterize the US's recent conflicts).

                           Europe is a distant third in an increasingly multipolar world that will be shaped by the US and China, reliant on the US's increasingly fickle protection from Russia; aging, fading, and losing identity. Their core industries like automotive have already lost to China, their power costs are skyrocketing, their technology (outside of some gifts from the US like ASML) lags the US across the frontiers, and there is deep divides across the continent.

                           But hey, at least they are protected from misgendering a "woman" with a beard or mentioning the identity of a criminal.

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