[zabana]

> Like VPN can be good enough when what you’re up against is stupid lazy bureaucrat cop types.

This echoes my experience in Africa too. Ironically, governments in the so-called "unfree" countries don't have nearly as much control or access to personal data as the "free" modern western ruling classes would have you believe.

It's pretty easy to game the system and evade surveillance altogether, especially considering that most people are in on it :)

[neverrroot]

If there ever was to be a reply from CCP, this is the line they will likely follow. Not denial, but making it sound like it’s not a big deal. Making it sound acceptable, even poking fun at it, as if it was something cool.

[zabana]

I'm not from the CCP ... or am I ?

It's always hilarious to watch westerners hate on the so called monsters of this world and not realising they're looking straight at the mirror.

[scyzoryk_xyz]

The bit at the end is a bit extreme as a statement. But I would agree that westerners do occasionally have a hard time wrapping their heads around all the nuances and differences between lives lived in various totalitarian and communist regimes. Some things, like resource scarcity, or paranoia, or vigilance - they're just inconceivable. Like explaining air to a fish.

That being said, as someone who has experienced both, I would like to point out that something similar holds true in the opposite direction as well. People who originate from communist or fascist regimes have difficulty understanding all the ways in which the West really is free. Especially when consequences of the freedom don't look so nice. Like when people are allowed to destroy their own lives, or law enforcement is reluctant to intervene in any way. They see conspiracy at work. But most of the time there is none, just plain old indifference, absence of control, petty greed, responsibility and self-reliance.

The real common denominator between both worlds is stupidity. Free markets are stupid and reactive. Totalitarian systems of power are stupid and passive. This is why I would say the bit about "looking at the mirror" is extreme.

[neverrroot]

Your current reply has a certain taste to it…

[zabana]

It's the sweetness of truth, I apologise. Some people like their coffee without sugar.

[neverrroot]

Would recommend you a book Mr G. Saad wrote, but I’m not sure you are open to it tbh. I never put sugar in my coffee either.