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 81 points 9 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.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour 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 7 points 3 hours ago

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.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 11 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

And then there’s Visa and MasterCard telling you what you can and can’t purchase because some conservative cesspool wrote some emails

They didn't just write emails, they actually picked up the phone and called them, non stop. They made it into a problem that couldn't be ignored. Gamers haven't done that, unfortunately.

[–] MSugarhill@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Früher war mehr Lametta?

[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 24 points 7 hours ago

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.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 12 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

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

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 4 points 5 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 13 points 8 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 0 points 7 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.