this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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From age and ID restrictions on the Internet, to charging rappers with “terrorism,” the U.K. is demolishing the most basic civil liberties. If we let them, U.S. leaders may be close behind.

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[–] noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org 103 points 18 hours ago (8 children)

Just what the fuck is this timeline? I was born in Russia and spent a good chunk of my life basically idolizing USA, UK, EU, other European countries, English-first countries, etc.

By the time I had the language and professional skills to try and migrate into a probably really good life, suddenly there's a rise of authoritarianism, loss of privacy, rollback to the political right and intolerance and hatred and whatever.

There's still a long way for these nations to go before things are as bad as here, but the differences still are dwindling at an alarming rate and I often find myself wondering if it's gonna be worth the effort if I want to eventually move to someplace that still respects privacy and freedom and is sensible about the Internet and digital technologies.

There's still a lot of perks from knowing English as well as I do, but at this point, I think I'd have to learn German or Swedish or some other northern EU language if I ever make up my mind.

And by the time I'm ready, these countries will roll out some bullshit, too, right?

And then there's Visa and MasterCard telling you what you can and can't purchase because some conservative cesspool wrote some emails - but gamers' emails are ignored...

It's all so demoralising. I miss looking forward to the future with hope and excitement for things.

[–] Tryenjer@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

It seems that our leaders idolize Russia back. 🤣

It's all about this,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

Apparently, Putin's regime is seen as an example for our leaders to follow.

P.S.: Without the direct threat that the communist USSR posed to Western elites, social-democracy faded away as the rich became more and more emboldened.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 hour ago

Dear christ, is there anything Russia isn't responsible for? Apparently we're all puppets in the West, easily hypnotized by gifs generated on washing machine CPUs, and conveniently it's never our own making.

Please seek therapy. This "Russia Russia Russia" thing is McCarthyist hysteria on steroids.

You're idolizing Russia as much if you think they're somehow behind everything you don't understand or like.

What's the difference between your elaborate near-psychotic take and any other conspiracy theory?

Russia Russia Russia. Jesus motherfucking tapdancing Christ on a rubber crutch.

I dropped a plate this morning, Russiaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!!!!

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 11 points 10 hours ago

There's always Canada, a similarly large yet sparsely populated land with awful winters and bad food, you'll fit right in.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 15 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

As someone still in Russia, a bit of the same.

That is, I expected things to get worse, but not "avalanche of shit, cockroaches and rat bones" levels of worse.

Except the idolization part started receding much earlier, when I actually learned English well enough to understand that these are very intolerant societies. Say, where in Russia people disagreeing with you on some key matters would look at you like a fool or just decide to stop this conversation so that neither of you would offend the other, in English-speaking countries, it seems, there was simply no way to survive outside of some echo chamber and God forbid you find none to fit into. But that was like 10-15 years ago, now, of course, in Russia you can get jailed or strongly fined for words.

But I thought there's some deeper wisdom and in those harsher societies people are also somehow better capable to maintain their common freedom and dignity yadda-yadda. In fact that's not what I see.

As a bit of gloating - at least now the "why are you not all revolting against Putin" Western types can be answered with their own regrettable example instead of common sense and logic, these are fine, but an example is more efficient.

in those harsher societies people are also somehow better capable to maintain their common freedom and dignity

that used to be the case, back in 1960s when the economy was booming and workers were in high demand. they got paid a lot, and if you have money, you can do whatever you want and live a good life, in the US at least.

[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 32 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

what's happening is our current system right now is in the process of failing. it's dying, it didn't work and it can no longer sustain itself. Someone once said something along the lines of "When the current system fails, the next one will consist of whatever ideas are left"

So what ideas are left? the ideas of the far right, just like far right ideas are ALWAYS left when a system is about to die. So all these governments, all these wealthy individuals, all these people that have the most to gain are are going start backing the new up coming system. We're seeing it in real time.

But this has happened time and time again. We're a collectively dumb species and love watching repeats. it's always the same song and dance "well lets go this way, sure it didn't work out last time but I don't believe it'll happen to us THIS time".

So it's not so much "what the fuck is this timeline" but rather "well it's our generations turn for bullshit". And it always skips a generation. So the boomers didn't experience it, but their parents did, and now it's our turn. Hopefully our children or our Kids children will be smarter than boomers but...we as humans sure do love watching reruns.

i believe that "far-right" sentiments are a natural defense mechanism against a perceived threat.

if your tribe is in danger, you start kicking the foreigners out, you start going back culturally to what you perceive as "safe",

it's literally like if a windows computer fails to boot properly 3 times in a row, it re-boots into "safe mode", which is a locked-down, dumbed-down, simplified version of the actual os. we are the computer. if people experience hardships too often throughout their daily lifes, they start "dumbing down" and "rebooting into safe mode". just that that safe mode causes more hardships for everyone else. and that's where we're at right now.

[–] MSugarhill@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Don't get your hoped too high on Germany, Switzerland and Austria...

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] MSugarhill@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 7 hours ago

I don't know, but we just got the governmental trojan back in law. It goes back and forth...

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 15 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Sweden teaches its kids English first now. You'll be fine.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 7 points 14 hours ago

You can now do secondary schools in English in Finland.

Except if you speak Finnish or Swedish as a native language.

Fucking stupid addition. Some right-wingers afraid of Finnish dying must've added it to the legislation but it's beyond silly and not having it would promote integration of non-Finnish speaking immigrants with Finnish/Swedish speaking natives. And there definitely isn't a lot of people who would prefer doing secondary school in English. Probably more from the newer generations but still a tiny minority.

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 16 points 17 hours ago

Back in the '80s my British father would get as far as opening his mouth to use the Swedish he'd been practicing before the shopkeeper would preempt him in flawless English "How can I help you, sir?".

My inlaws actually don't speak any English and they're the first adult Swedes I've known that don't. Fortunately I speak Swedish fluently but it was comedically awkward for my wife's previous British boyfriends!

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 2 points 16 hours ago

FYI Germany has been rolling out bullshit already, so that's one out for the count. I'm in a similar situation to you, and I think it's time to give up on the traditional first world. The future for economic immigrants is honestly pretty bleak, but your best bet is either the sane part of Eastern Europe (here's hoping Ukraine pulls through with its democracy intact), South America or somewhere in Southeast Asia if you're looking for a democracy with a decent standard of living.