I agree, western capitalist exploitation is far worse, but privileged liberals in the imperial core aren’t the main victim, and they only care if their billionaire owned media tells them to.
Comment on In North Korea, your phone secretly takes screenshots every 5 minutes for government surveillance
yucandu@lemmy.world 3 weeks agofrequently stopping young people on the streets to inspect their phones and review text messages for banned language
I’m really tired of people saying “both sides are the same” when it comes to western capitalist exploitation vs eastern totalitarian authoritarianism.
It’s ironically so privileged to even make the comparison because if it were the same, you wouldn’t have been allowed to make this comment.
BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
plyth@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
if it were the same, you wouldn’t have been allowed to make this comment.
It works both ways. Is OP allowed to make the comment because he is priviliged or because he is powerless and no threat?
Remember the McCarthy era. There can be more restrictions if needed.
Obelix@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I totally agree. Stuff like Microsoft recall is not great and America under Trump neither, but it is nothing compared to North Korea. That is a hellhole nobody who grew up in a free western society really can even imagine.
Vespair@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Frequently the point of comparing the two is to caution before they actually become comparable, though. I think it’s intentional hyperbole to make a stark point, not an insensitive reduction.
BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I’d rather live in NK then in Gaza: the West loves to create hellholes, and the US has the most prisoners of any country on earth so calling it a ‘free society’ is pretty rich.
just2look@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I didn’t say both sides are the same. I made a stupid joke about a garbage operating system and the garbage company that runs it.
And your example of stopping people on the streets to inspect their phones doesn’t really do a great job at making the argument you’re trying to make. We have ICE running around and throwing people into contracted prisons even when they have proof of citizenship. We are trafficking people to foreign concentration camps. We are rocketing at light speed to a techno fascist authoritarian state and the level of surveillance we are under is increasing at a mind boggling pace.
So we aren’t the same, and the people currently in charge are striving to make the differences smaller every day.
tauren@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Nah, the joke was fine. They overreacted.
GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
In addition to your point, literally just two days ago I saw an article about a Texas sheriff running a search through a nation-wide network of license plate readers to track down a woman suspected of having an abortion.
Oh OK they didn’t stop her on the street, they just queried the panopticon system that tracked her movement as much as possible. Want to protest a genocide your state and university are sponsoring? Sorry, MIT will muzzle you and now you are now forbidden from giving the commencement address. Wouldn’t want to offend the dear leader in the white house.