h4890 @[email protected]

Will be very interesting to see the election result in Hungary in a few hours!

I wonder if Orban will just declare the election a fraud, and shut down democracy, or do the classic "vote again" until the correct vote has been registered.

@citc Not paying cash is my bad conscience. I should do it more often. The only mitigating factor is that I use my company and my lifestyle to reduce my tax burden significantly. But yes, I should pay more in cash.

@ChrisMayLA6 I think there should be compensation to the individual, but there should also be some kind of fine at a much higher level for the state itself, and that money should of course not go to the states coffers.

The idea is to make errors like that so costly, tha the government will increase its due diligence and "quality control".

@ChrisMayLA6 @tartanroots about dismantling the modern surveillance state?

For instance... the swedish nationalists where at the beginning very anti-EU. Then they became mainstream, and their EU politician suddenly received life time pensions and made them millionaires. All of a sudden, they are pro-EU.

@ChrisMayLA6 @tartanroots This is the truth! It seems to me that privacy is a question that frequently lends itself to cooperation, or at least aligntment, between libertarians and the grass roots left/greens.

Nationalists and incumbent left and right (typically socialist or center/right) seem to be very happy about dismantling surveillance.

The key question then becomes... if the grass roots green, reds or libertarians should ever become incumbents, will they then quickly drop any ideas

@ChrisMayLA6 But surely you are not saying that it was socialism that led to the UK becoming the world capital of finance? According to my history books, it was the turn away from socialism that led to the financial wonder of the UK.

@shortstories Yes, what I like about them is that they "do their thing" regardless of what the world does, and they teach us to ask, do we _really_ need this technology? Maybe we can survive without it?

Personally I do not own a smartphone. Yes, I pay higher prices for things both in terms of money and inconvenience, but it is worth it for me.

@shortstories This is very dystopian and very authoritarian. =(

@ChrisMayLA6 Sad to hear that it is not only in sweden that this happens. Remember the story of a man who wrongfully served 12 or 14 years in prison for murder.

In the end, _he_ was able to prove himself innocent, something which countless lawyers had not been able to do for 12 years.

I think he got 1.5 million GBP in damages and left sweden forever to start a B&B in southern spain.

Horrible when the state steals 12 years of your life like that. 1.5 million GBP is not near enough.

@ChrisMayLA6 What I fear though, as a libertarian, is that governments all over learned through corona, that smartphones are the best tool for monitoring and controlling the population.

I fear that they will soon become mandatory in western societies, and that pen and papers means to interact with the government will be abolished.

Think no further than how unpleasant it would be if Trump controlled your digital ID, or if, for the other side... Starmer controlled it.

@ChrisMayLA6 attacksurface for scammers. If they discover that you don't have a smartphone with (in my country) mobile digital ID, they just hang up.

@tartanroots @ChrisMayLA6 Laptops are often cheaper than modern smartphones, so there would be a financial benefit to move to laptops as well.

If you look at a used computer website, or other online market place for used equipment, you can get an old laptop for 50-200 GBP, at least in sweden. Compare that with the price of a smartphone.

@ChrisMayLA6 This is the way! I also only own a dumbphone, and the mental health benefits are considerable. I am able to concentrate, I am not interrupted every 5 minutes, no scammers are able to trick me into startings apps or to use my mobile id, my colleagues only call me if something is really important, not just "checking" or wanting my opinion on the most trivial things, which inevitably happens if they can "chat" with me on the phone.

For elderly, I strongly recommend it to remove an

@ChrisMayLA6 has followed a leftist economy, which we know, lowers growth and makes things worse for the country. If post-brexit would have followed a diet of complete deregulation, cutting taxes in half, becoming a tax- _and_ data-haven etc. the EU would by now be begging the UK to come back in any form they would choose.

@ChrisMayLA6 I wouldn't call it right, in the US example, I would call that "nationalism". And as we all know, nationalism taken to its extreme, always ends in tears.

I would argue though, that the UK example is closer to what you can call "right".

Complaining about the situatoin is silly, and if the UK would only adopt a right stance towards financial questions, after a few years of booming economy, the EU will beg the UK to negotiate.

The "right" took them out of the EU, but after that

@shortstories The question is.... are the beavers ready to join the war?

@shortstories Try computers and ecnryption instead. Isn't it already a theoretical possibility that the US can take away your laptop in case you refuse to unlock it?

I am certain that tor, i2p, and similar software will become a crime in our more authoritarian western "democracies" in the next decade.

Movie recommendation: Perfect days (2023)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27503384/

A beautiful meditation on what gives life meaning, and how much you can simplify life, while still living a rich one.

Warning, it has a minimum of dialogue, and no background music, yet manages to tell a beautiful story. If you like minimalism and existentialist themes, give it a try.

If you like something fast paced, or something very close to hollywood story telling, stay far away.