[apetrov]

Right. Russia has been grinding for 50km in eastern Ukraine for 4 years, and now suddenly it wants to attack an alliance 7x its population and 20x its economy. It sounds like yet another excuse to erode liberty than an actual threat to the west.

[petertodd]

If Ukraine loses, Russia will be in a good position to attack the west because they think we're cowards who won't actually respond to, e.g., Estonia getting invaded. Also, it's misleading to say that Ukraine is 1/20th the economy: Ukraine is supported by NATO.

Of course, this is all irrelevant to the discussion around chat control: authoritarians want authority.

[StefanBatory]

Scanning convos for leaks; spies, and so on.

[subscribed]

Oh, okay, so how you are planning on keeping spies and so on on the platforms that will implement the scanning?

[StefanBatory]

I am not saying I agree with that - just what the line thought of the folks at top may be.

[subscribed]

Oh, right, indeed "are you a terrorist? " was always next to "think of the children!"

[DaSHacka]

Sounds like Russia is Europe's Iran.

They're 2 weeks away from having ~~nuclear weapons~~ invading Europe! Sorry, we need to scan all of your communications to prepare for this looming threat.

[petertodd]

Iran has been "2 weeks" away from having nuclear weapons repeatedly. Each time they get especially close we bomb and/or sabotage them to undo their progress.

Russia is equally a genuine threat to the west. A threat we can easily fix by helping Ukraine bomb them into economic collapse.

[DaSHacka]

I honestly don't see it. I'm far more wary of China than Russia.

Russia can't even take Ukraine, they're experiencing their own version of the U.S. Vietnam catastrophe.