[farseer]

State overreach and surveillance is a global trend. Don't mind me saying this: As a Jewish citizen with fair skin, a dual passport you would probably do fine, unless you are an Arab...

Even under the most tyrannical regimes such as Iran, Myanmar, Russia, China etc. The elite are rarely targeted by the state apparatus. If you are a majority ethnic group with family links in the military, bureaucracy, big business politics etc. You are mostly safe. If not, well encryption is not going to save you. Take your family and run.

[tianqi]

I'm afraid I don't agree with this. In China's Cultural Revolution(1966-1976), the elite were the prime target of persecution. They included the intellectual class, the rich, and even political leaders. Millions of elites committed suicide or were persecuted to death during this movement, including even the 2nd president of the country.

[local_issues]

That many want to do this again is absolutely insane to me.

I see so much support for Mao BECAUSE of his murder of landlords and business owners, not DESPITE of his atrocities

[giraffe_lady]

I don't want to downplay atrocities of that revolution. But, as a quip, if you think the murders were bad wait until you hear what the landlords were up to!

Seriously though using the english word landlord is a gross simplification that elides generation on generation of pervasive horrors. It is very difficult for us to imagine how all-consuming and oppressive this environment was, it was much closer to european manorialism than the current property ownership relationship we call landlords.

Shit like getting an usurious grain loan from your landlord to survive the winter, than having to sell your children to repay it in the spring. Having your wife seized as collateral and enslaved by your landlord. This sort of thing was routine and pervasive, and it lasted hundreds of years. We're lucky to live in an era where we can easily imagine comprehensive change to the conditions of life. These people were not. If you make any effort to understand it it is quite easy to understand why it went the way it did.

A famous quote about another revolution often considered to have overstepped:

> “There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”

[tianqi]

They don't want. Where there is no information, people are like zombies just do what the manipulator wants them to do.

[appplication]

Same with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Famously targeted journalists, doctors, lawyers, scientists, academics, business leaders, etc.

[defrost]

Not Colombia - very much the wrong part of the world.

Kampuchea and|or Cambodia works.

[appplication]

Good catch, I commented on mobile think that was an autocorrect-ism

[defrost]

No drama, easy slip to make when commenting on the trot, I wasn't laying blame on you (I've done similar myself) just setting the record straight :-)

[gtirloni]

> Take your family and run.

Pretty much my advice when some friends started to discuss having guns at home.

If I ever find myself in a situation where I need a gun (because of gang violence, robbery, etc), I'll move neighborhood->city->state->country as needed.

It's less critical (IMHO), when it comes to state surveillance (your privacy is jeopardized but your physical security may or may not be, it depends) but I'd apply the same approach.

[bagacrap]

> trend

Overreach is a trend? So it will be passe eventually?

> global [...] run

To where, Mars?

(Thought I would complement your utterly unhelpful comment with one of my own.)