@distal@lemmy.ml

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• The already bullshit concept of an “AI” super intelligence had a definition. This renaming is completely nonsensical and nullifies the original meaning.

  on Trump says the US is officially renaming AI to ‘super intelligence’ in c/technology@lemmy.world · 23h ago

• Pirating is ethical, spotify is not!

  on Trump says the US is officially renaming AI to ‘super intelligence’ in c/technology@lemmy.world · 23h ago

• Well, we’ll see how history will play out.

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 1d ago

• That baby was NEVER going to grow up and live any sort of semblance of a normal life

  People said that about me. I had developmental issues, by far not as bad as the child you are referring to, but bad enough to make doctors believe I had epilepsy. Potentially a progressive form.

  Someone I knew in school had muscular dystrophy. My developmental difficulties persisted into my young teens and the one thing I remember him saying to me was “the Nazis would have killed us both.” Where he is right now, I could not know. He might not be alive anymore.

  People would have said we were suffering, or be under some kind of pain, despite our lives being full of worthwhile moments. Adults tend to say things that make reality feel comprehensible. A defenceless child is the victim of the narcissistic adult who is unable think beyond their feelings and perception of reality. The narcissistic need to feel in control and competent borne from a society where it’s everyone against everyone.

  It feels like a punch in the face. People making a show of the suffering or what they perceive to be suffering while at the same time not advocating for a morsel of assistance to disabled people. In fact, they would maintain that killing the disabled person is sufficient assistance. Inequality in healthcare, lacking support networks, ableism, all swept under the rug while crying “look at the suffering!”

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 1d ago

• Yes, and that is highly traumatic for children. Child rearing being an atomised, personalised thing of the direct relatives is not a historical constant. More communal forms of raising children have exist and will exist.

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 1d ago

• You are talking about decisions where there is consent from the affected party and cases that don’t correlate too well (guns and school shooting example, where there exist gun liberal nations that have relatively low rates of school shootings). A child cannot possibly consent to nor understand medical suicide. It’s not a dichotomy where it’s equally horrific that a child isn’t able to consent to a continued life (while suffering in some way) , because once euthanasia for a child is chosen, it is permanent, as opposed to the decision to keep a child alive not being permanent.

  Suicide is hated because a lot of the time the person committing suicide regrets it the second they do it. Suicide is hated because life is the purpose of every living being, on some logical level it doesn’t compute. Suicide is also hated because it affects people of worse socioeconomic standing to a greater degree than people who are in a comfortable spot. The are of course exceptions with cases of severe illness, but they require a sound grown up mind!

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• Environmental protection has historically not been associated with mass murder. Euthanasia on the other hand has been associated with mass murder. In some countries, Germany for instance, the word euthanasia itself is so dirty that no politician dare even hint at it when designing policy, and that’s excluding medical policy.

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• misinterpreted what you meant with that erosion

  Thank you.

  Preferably that should not be happening, and giving the parents the ability to decide on their behalf is in my view an acceptable compromise to prevent that suffering from happening. While it is a decision with a lot more weight, we already do give parents a lot of power to make decisions for their child in other situations, so it is not entirely without precedent.

  Yes, and this is why I say that helping families and children as much as possible is important. If it costs 30 million to support a child, so be it. How the weakest members of a society are treated indicates the over all health of a society.

  I think this is a ridiculous take. The Netherlands cannot be held responsible for what it didn’t do itself.

  I think you can’t view things in isolation. Lawmakers are acutely aware of the reception of their actions abroad.

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• Bad comparison

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• I certainly wouldn’t call that an “erosion of the west” as per your first comment.

  I have to get this straight because you are again misrepresenting my statement. Europe and the United States are in crisis. Right wing extremists are becoming political leaders. The erosion of the West is fact and not some reactionary comment dreamed up by someone envisioning hordes of outsiders flooding their continent. I did not call euthanasia itself a part of the erosion of the west, I was simply mentioning at a general development.

  Secondly, I don’t believe the parents should decide. The nuclear family is a horrifically outdated model where the direct relatives get to play owner. I think it’s extremely worrying that the parents are affirmed in their role of “people who know best” at every turn in politics from left to right.

  So because another country might not be deliberate in the way they implement their version of euthanasia, we shouldn’t be implementing our version of euthanasia?

  Yes exactly, and another country making mistakes doesn’t absolve the Netherlands if the Netherlands serves as law-inspo

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• You know who will feel pressured to put their child through this right now with it being a thing? Parents of lower socioeconomic standing. If you have a lot of resources you will be able to accommodate your sick child better, you might be able to give them dignified natural end of life care. People who have little money, workers, are not in that position. Involuntary killing is always related to class.

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• You don’t understand. The child, while suffering extremely, is in no way able to consent to their killing. The state sanctions it as ok, as long as a list of criteria are met. This signals to other powers, who view the Netherlands as a role model that state sanctioned involuntary killing in medicine is fine, as long as you have a long list of reasons you can go through.

  Compare it to Germany implementing Palantir, which has signalled to other nations that Palantir is fine.

  It is not a ploy by a reactionary government, that is not what I was saying. I was saying that it is something a reactionary government can and in fact will use to get rid of what is considered less pretty and detrimental to unifying a nation/building a national ideal.

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• I am unsure if the NL is going to stick to their strict processes, when we consider what happened in Canada under MAiD.

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• A reactionary government would certainly try to expand the criteria for euthanasia. If the EU and other international bodies continue to erode, someplace in the West will certainly reinvent life unworthy of life.

  on First-ever case of euthanasia on very young child, 2, was handled well in c/europe@feddit.org · 2d ago

• Which of course absolves those providing and buying the software completely. No, this is just as bad.

  on Thales launches European AI alternative to Palantir in c/europe@feddit.org · 3d ago

• I always say your boss is very happy to have you fight meaningless fights and not him or her

  on LGBT tolerance slumps in the Netherlands as debate turns vicious in c/europe@feddit.org · 3d ago

• Please, just shut up.

  on LGBT tolerance slumps in the Netherlands as debate turns vicious in c/europe@feddit.org · 3d ago

• Same, I am worried about humans using ANNs to kill people. Current society is a gigantic apparatus that is constantly shifting shuffling responsibility around. LMMs only accelerate the problem.

  on AI staff 'genuinely frightened' for humanity's future, ex-Anthropic researcher tells BBC in c/technology@lemmy.world · 5d ago

• Arch is Ubuntu thanks to SystemD

  on dating tips in c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world · 5d ago

• Into the wilds I retreat.

  on Your Computer Might Demand Your Age Soon, No Matter Where You Live in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 17 Sep 2026

• [2]

  Maybe the correct phrase would be “the people from UK created the problem…” but my point stand.

  Putting it this abstractly says very little about causality.

  They don’t join private clubs as it were[…]

  Even joining a private club is a negotiation, albeit a much simpler one: you agree to follow a set of rules when you join or you decide the rules if you are a founding member of a new club.

  There is much more at stake in a union of states. A private club between individuals is not a good analogy. Almost every aspect is different.

  Nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Nuclear aspect was legal at the time. Now there are many states that have pledged to not use nuclear weapons.

  Nuclear is legal also now. What prevent the use of nuclear weapons is the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine, nothing else. Nobody is so stupid (not even Iran or Putin) to belive that they can launch a nuclear attack and then survive the retaliation.

  No leader is this stupid or brazen, yes. But I have established that states can act in a quite stupid way. Aside from nuclear weapons being legal or not, there are states that have agreed to not use them in a codified fashion.

  I remember that back then, a soldier was required to disobey an illegal order, it was one of the first thing that was said to a new soldier.

  Well, that doesn’t translate in practice.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 13 Sep 2026

• [1]

  This will be my last response, as I believe I have explained my positions sufficiently. I don’t believe in debate for the sake of debate, even if it can be fun. This is not to accuse you of causing undue debate – I don’t believe you did. I can only dedicate so much time and energy to responding to people.

  I think the distinction of legal and illegal immigrants serves as a foot in the door for culture war distraction[…]

  Ok, assuming you are right, what would be a solution to try to solve the problem with illegal immigration and all its consequences ?

  I don’t believe undocumented immigration to be a problem. If anything immigration as a problem is a construction to conveniently justify not changing the present state of things on a fundamental level, which would require rethinking and undoing the domestic/foreign dichotomy and with that also many aspects of (private) property, since private ownership is based on exclusion on multiple levels: Personal, stockholder-wide, national, etc…

  Aside from that I don’t believe that a critique becomes valid when an alternative is offered. Also, critique can often mean a behaviour or line of argument should be avoided full stop, for example when I have the option of threatening someone to get money back. A. A person might return money out of a more intrinsic motivation B. I might not get much from demanding my money back as that entails expending valuable time. I can go around justifying all kinds of facts of life, but that wouldn’t get me any closer to answering questions beyond the level of phenomena. So I better not focus on creating justifications of present phenomena at all.

  Lastly, in order to advance I need to diagnose what is going wrong. I can not provide solutions to nothingness. Solutions by definition have causes and reasons. Critique is a necessary first step and can stand exist as is without going beyond scope.

  The step after that is introducing legislation to make working visas less of a certainty, usually that’s coupled to worse working conditions[…]

  I think that here you are wrong. If you make working visas less viable the local worker gain something in my opinion. Companies still need workers and now they have a smaller pool to choose from.

  The super low paying jobs where immigrant employment is high now have to be done by local workers. That is not a gain. Industries that rely on highly specialised and educated workers from abroad like healthcare are less able to address demand, that in turn drives up prices, which hits workers (and the unemployed) the hardest.

  What make working condition worse for everyone (local population, legal and illegal immigrants) is that when you have a lot of illegal immigrants an unscrupulous employer can simply hire one of them at a fraction of what he should pay a legal worker.

  Yes of course, that is why it makes a lot of sense to give undocumented immigrants the chance to become documented immigrants. A “legal” immigrant can demand more pay without fear and thereby raise wages for the vast majority of people by a little. I’m not talking about creating massive social programs and giving away citizenship, just a little tweak that could go a long way. Unfortunately politics as of late makes decisions that favour the market.

  Many voters of right wing parties don’t have a problem with immigrants as long as they’re the right immigrants in their view.

  Which basically means that people has no problems with people who work honestly and contribute to the society.

  I think I have shown it’s difficult to even determine what a “right” immigrant is. I think this view of there being right and wrong immigrants is on a basic level a false dichotomy.

  The question is: since a country can absorb a certain number of new immigrant every year, why we should allow in people we know we cannot handle in a decent way ?

  I doubt that “we” can know these things and supposing “we” did, what is then stopping “us” from applying this logic to citizens who are not on their best behaviour? If your answer to this is “No, we can’t. We a have responsibility to other countries to not sully them with the worst of our own”, then what is keeping this exclusionary logic from putting citizens into forced labour camps or killing them?

  This way you are simply ruining the society (where people will start to look at extremist like a solution, think AfD) and the immigrant, both the already legal ones and the new legal ones, to not talk about the illegal ones.

  I firmly reject this notion.

  Criminals doing petty crime are not able to find regular employment when the state cracks down on them. They walk into the arms of human traffickers, which does not decrease the crime rate in any way. At best, crimes are made hidden or moved geographically.

  The point is to have less crime avoiding to have people on the country that need to live by petty crimes. And to do this you need to keep immigration in check.

  Crime is decreasing in spite of immigration. Immigration is not well correlated with crime and better understood through economics like the ghetto tax and so on. You are imagining a problem.

  The important distinction here is trying and being. As someone who works, you likely have rather few resources to fund a business.

  I don’t need too much. The fund you need depends heavily on what you want to do. Currently I could easily open a consulting business that can sustain my family in the end, and I don’t need too much resources. I simply choose not because I like better to work 9-18 and then be free.

  I don’t place much emphasis on anecdotes. I mean good for you, but the statistics look different.

  You won’t be able to provide as much collateral on loans as people with capital, i.e. people whose property works for them. You are significantly disadvantaged.

  No, I am not significantly disadvantaged. Or better, it depends on what business you are thinking about. In certain cases you are right, in other you are wrong.

  You are significantly disadvantaged. A big consulting firm will outspend you, will already have a name for itself, and potentially swallow you if you become too big. I am 100% right here with the exception of the few startups that win the business lottery at best, and even that case I am not really incorrect since I take stochastic effects in that vein into account.

  Certainly. But you have duties and in the army example those duties entail grave acts such as taking another’s life and giving one’s own.

  I would have not a problem to kill an enemy soldier who has as target to kill me and my family.

  You have more in common with the “enemy” soldier than with the people that put you both into war. You don’t get to see the president in person just like that, the enemy soldier you do see.

  Also it is your job to kill the enemy soldier along with their family potentially. Everyone says they’re defending themselves.

  Then again the army is a low hanging fruit since they’ll take all kinds of people.

  No, they will not take all kinds of people. To enter the army you need to meet a minimum level. In may case the problem is that I am too old now, but when I enlisted people were excluded because they were deemed unsuitable, for physical or psychological reasons.

  They won’t take all kinds of people outside of war or tensions. The situation changes when an army is involved in a war. Project 100,000

  Throughout history armies have been famous for using, as it were, less capable troops as cannon fodder. War, war never changes.

  I don’t think so. The state, police and monopolies on violence are a recent phenomenon.

  If you define “recent” as the last three thousand years, then I agree.

  Police forces have only existed for only four-hundred years, and that is a charitable estimate. Modern humans have existed for more than 100,000 years as hunter-gatherers that were internally relatively peaceful.

  In every society starting with the ancient Egypt there were some sort of justice system that was handled by the state

  Ancient Greek and Roman societies are the first to have justice systems with legal professionals. Before that you had religious courts. Those had more in common with divine rituals than the careful application of law. Contradictory as it may sound to modern ears, laws did not start out as legalistic code.

  Previous societies, that weren’t states as you know them, were structured quite differently. Feudalism required peasants to give a share of their crops to their lords. There were no banking systems, which only begin to start popping up in Italy by the 14th century and it took banks three centuries to become widespread in Europe.

  States as centralised holders of capital have only been a thing since banking, taxation, free trade, and employment became central. The removal of barriers to finance is signalled by Cromwell and the French Revolution, among other things. See the development of economic freedom.

  There are arguments to be made about cities being precocious, but my point about the state being recent still stands. At best states are 5,500 years old, the fully developed nation-state is maybe only 350 (probably closer to 250) years old.

  and sometime with way more violence than today

  That is highly subjective. In terms of destructive power I think modern weaponry is the most violent by a long shot.

  History is littered with systems where social conduct was shaped without purely punitive or violent measures. Who is to say that the nation state is the end-all-be-all?

  For example ?

  Some Native American societies, aspects of Maori society and a few other Polynesian societies.

  This does not really engage with the argument. States don’t have responsibilities like people.

  But States are made of people.

  Yes, but group behaviour is different from individual behaviour.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 13 Sep 2026

• [2]

  It makes sense that rule breakers would use the following-orders defence since the rules are made by those declaring the orders.

  Only if you are on the winning side. And also in this case I am not sure that if you follow an illegal order the defence works.

  I don’t think it matters that much if you are defending yourself or not. The idea of following orders concerns what you are doing at any given moment. If I was stationed at Abu Ghraib and I received an order to do something I might as well do it. I have this justification of following orders that suits my role. In fact the defense still works. Quote from wikipedia: “Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in the New York Times as stating that Calley’s sentence was reduced because Calley believed that what he did was a part of his orders” As for when you’re confronted with not being on the winning side, many people in the united states think that large parts of the Wehrmacht and Japanese army are absolved of their crimes because “they had no other choice”, even in cases where it’s very clear that someone gleefully committed crimes.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 9 Sep 2026

• [1]

  The thing is, immigrants are the perfect victims. They often don’t have…

  The problem is that people are not able anymore to discern things. What you say it could be true but the problem is that it applied mostly to illegal immigrants.

  I think the distinction of legal and illegal immigrants serves as a foot in the door for culture war distraction. First there is about needing to surveil some immigrant communities because of terrorist acts associated with foreigners, then it’s about not wanting to take in refugees because other nations in the EU are not putting in enough of an effort, then it becomes an issue of illegal immigration – which is synonymous with undocumented immigration. The step after that is introducing legislation to make working visas less of a certainty, usually that’s coupled to worse working conditions. Lastly deportations, nowadays called remigration, strip large sections of immigrants and those with an immigrant background of citizenship. This furthers an erosion of basic rights and puts those affected in a position where it’s do or die, which means proving your worth as an immigrant to state and industry.

  Furthermore, many currently legal and working immigrants have histories of undocumented migration, receiving government aid, and some even have engaged in illegal activity.

  True, some people are assholes also to legal immigrants (stupid people alway exists). Most people have not problems with the immigrants that work and partecipate in the society but with the immigrants that live by petty crimes.

  Many voters of right wing parties don’t have a probblem with immigrants as long as they’re the right immigrants in their view. Immigrants are disadvantaged though and this makes some turn to crime. Crime that could be in large part prevented if these people had their needs better met. Trying to kick out criminal immigrants potentially makes the problem worse because it puts them in an even more precarious situation where they are even more incentivised to do crime. This creates pressure for the vast majority of immigrants who by the way are not criminals to conform even harder.

  Criminals doing petty crime are not able to find regular employment when the state cracks down on them. They walk into the arms of human traffickers, which does not decrease the crime rate in any way. At best, crimes are made hidden or moved geographically.

  Many nationalists force use immigrants because left wings (and other btw) parties make it too easy to use them as bogeyman: it is not too hard to point your finger at them saying “they are all criminals” when looking at situations in the cities (I always use the Milan Central railway station as example).

  Reformist-progressive parties are in power in urban areas where inequality is high. They are not able to change anything because the entire country’s economy is built in such a way that creates significant discrepancies in wealth, which is magnified in urban areas. The left leaning parties are not sending the “bad” immigrants elsewhere because A. it costs money and B. it does not address the cause. This does not seem like a local left wing party problem, they seem like a correlation at best.

  As I said elsewhere, years of immigrations left unchecked has caused the society to switch from the “they need help” mentality to the “they are all criminals, we don’t need them” mentality, offering an easy target to nationalist forces even because everyone else refused to look at the problem.

  I think “unchecked immigration” is a misnomer. I would not say that immigration was ever left unchecked, immigration has always been a gigantic cornerstone of policy.

  I would not commit murder because I think doing it is enough of a punishment. My not-terrible upbringing has led me to dislike such acts. I have nothing to gain from just murdering people and that has rather little to do with punitive consequences

  The basic question is: would you think that people would do something illegal if they would be sure to be caught and punished proportionally to the crime ?

  I’ve answered this numerous times in great detail at this point and the answer is yes and besides, there is this assumption that just “bringing people to justice” is most important in order to prevent crime. There are crimes that have high clearance rates, meaning that on paper a very high number of reported crimes are figured out. People still commit these crimes and it’s sort of a ‘mystery’ of the justice system why that is still the case. Well, clearly there are factors, which I have previously pointed to, that go beyond catching the bad guys and punishing them for effect.

  The phrasing here is a little unclear to me. I presume you mean that you want to preserve the potentiality of becoming a state servant or business owner. Statistically speaking (and logically speaking) workers don’t just move up the ladder. If everyone could the system as it is would implode and we know that it’s self-correcting against collapsing in on itself. As a worker it’s very difficult to start a business because you need money and time to plan. Oftentimes you fail because the real world is noisy and certainties are few.

  No, I mean that I was s state servant (I served in the militay like every other man did up until 20 years ago) and I was a business owner.

  Thank you for clarifying.

  But your point is wrong: everyone can try and that does not mean that everyone will succeded. There is nothing that can stop me to try to become again a business owner, only my choice to not be one.

  This, with the exception of the very last part, is what I was saying. Sure, you can try to become a business owner, there are no limits to you choosing to. The important distinction here is trying and being. As someone who works, you likely have rather few resources to fund a business. You won’t be able to provide as much collateral on loans as people with capital, i.e. people whose property works for them. You are significantly disadvantaged.

  And likewyse there is nothing that stops me to try to become a state servant again if not objective things: I am too old to join again the army or I have not the correct studies for a certain work in the state apparatus for example.

  Certainly. But you have duties and in the army example those duties entail grave acts such as taking another’s life and giving one’s own. Then again the army is a low hanging fruit since they’ll take all kinds of people. It’s good that you realise that there are certain prerequisites that the vast majority of people do not have when we turn our eyes away from the army example. This gate is education and education is highly determined by the financial situation of one’s parents.

  And society do not implode because someone move up the ladder.

  Yes, when one person moves up the ladder society does not implode, but what I was saying is that society implodes when a fair chunk of people can simply choose to move up the ladder, by applying themselves better for example. If everyone became self-employed, you’d be back in feudalism and that simply isn’t efficient enough in order to sustain industrial production.

  But the punishment here does not come out of thin air. There is a monopoly on violence that is in the hands of the state.

  The alternative is a never ending chain of personal vendettas.

  I don’t think so. The state, police and monopolies on violences are a recent phenomenon. History is littered with systems where social conduct was shaped without purely punitive or violent measures. Who is to say that the nation state is the end-all-be-all?

  It is a problem that the UK and the EU created. It is a problem of the contradiction between the local level and the international level. This problem is quite relevant for the EU, because it signals greater antagonisms affecting the entirety of Europe.

  The UK created the problem when decided to leave the EU. Think about EU like a private club: you could enter if you are a member. You leave the club, you can no longer enter. Who caused the problem ? The club which follow its rules of you that decide to leave the club thinking that you could still enter whenever you wanted ?

  This does not really engage with the argument. States don’t have responsibilities like people. They don’t join private clubs as it were. The rules you are seeing are a result of negotiations based on leverage and generally this is in the interest of the most powerful nations. First the EEC (EU-predecessor) is created out of a strength in numbers calculation. The United States and the Soviet Union are blocks that could overpower any one member of the EU, but as a regional alliance the scales can be balanced. The rules of the EU are based on that. It’s not a rules-first thing, if it was Hungary would have long been kicked out for repeatedly flunking the rules of the EU flagrantly.

  Assuming rules are static and respected: Wars cause innovation because either side seeks to win. Technical novelties are extremely important. You may not see mustard gas be used or soldiers being blinded by lasers, but you might have to deal with new technology for which no specific laws exist. There are these magical battle technologies called autonomous drones and autonomous turrets.

  That does not means that everything is allowed. The use of every weapon, old or new, ultimately has a resposinble: who gave the order to deploy it.

  Of course it does not mean that everything is “allowed”. So long as there are states there is war and there is an incetive to come up with new ways of brutalising your enemy. My argument is this, mustard gas wasn’t banned prior to the end of WWI, then it got banned. Nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Nuclear aspect was legal at the time. Now there are many states that have pledged to not use nuclear weapons.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 9 Sep 2026

• Your moderation history and name make a lot of sense with the positions you are taking. What the hell is going on there… Like holy balls man, shame on you!

  

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 8 Sep 2026

• It does not matter! You are not engaging with the argument I was making. I was talking about people conflating specifics, one-offs, and so forth, with the mean and the median among other things. You are derailing the discussion here.

  Let’s get to the point about why prisons exist. Prisons and psychiatric institutions share two to three distinct roles.

  1. Containing individuals that pose a danger to themselves (which currently works so-so) or others (which currently works so-so).

  2. To make working people as terrified as possible of becoming part of the lowest rungs of society. Suicide rates in prisons are high! Employment after spending time in prison very unlikely. Many unhoused individuals are former prisoners and often times they are unhoused because they spent time in prison. There is a reason why parents tell their kids to be good in school and behave well, otherwise they might end up in prison or on the street. Prison is one of many methods to condition complacency in the face of restaurant owners ordering their staff to clean up blood in lavatories with minimal protective clothing and workers getting screamed at for not completing concrete pours fast enough.

  3. This doesn’t really count as much but these institution are supposed to rehabilitate individuals. Though it can be argued that locking people up for that is not strictly necessary. And rehabilitation often means becoming a “productive” member of society, not a healed one.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 8 Sep 2026

• In this situation the immigrants (the Britons) were able to stay in Sweden exactly because UK was in the EU and then there were rules about this. Also a lot of people was forced to left UK for the same reason.

  Of course.

  I would like to discuss about this, if what you say would be true we would not have rise from all the parties that say to send them back. Now we can discuss about legal Vs illegal immigrants but I don’t think we could agree.

  The thing is, immigrants are the perfect victims. They often don’t have the same rights as citizens, they might have difficulties expressing themselves in the local language and often times they are poor. They cannot defend themselves as easily, not as a collective, nor as individuals. There are certainly migrants who do speak up, I wouldn’t deny this. I am focusing on the fact they’re a generally marginalised group present in daily life.

  They are also something that is perceived as external. Foreign if you will. A nation defines itself though external facts and the principal externality is competition, like china being Competition for Japan and vice versa. Immigrants are of course not external, they become part of a nation because of local realities like paying taxes. Anyone who pays tax on their income in Germany is a German from a simple functionalist lens. When the current political system reaches its inevitable boundaries, what is the more comfortable thing for a self sustaining system to do? Admit faults and inherent limitations (which exist in regards to growth, etc.,) or is it easier to define scapegoat minorities? I would say the latter.

  The antagonism against immigrants is great for business. Immigrants are less likely to unionise or make demands if there is significant pressure for them to conform. They don’t want to be thrown out of a country because it means loosing everything, so they will make a point to work harder, longer, and with less pay. Immigrants will accept living in bad housing, harassment, and discrimination in social services, just to have a chance at survival.

  Many nationalistic forces use immigrants, and generally those who have nothing, as a vehicle to direct the class antagonism away from workers vs. business owners and (a good chunk of) state servants, towards average workers and those in the middle middle class (including very few small businesses) vs. extremely impoverished sections of society, which includes poorer workers without qualifications who work back-breaking jobs. All in all, immigrants are not inherently harmful. They are in a sense quite useful.

  Would you commit a murder if you would be **sure ** to be caught, put in prison cell 2x2 meters and never ever exit, not even for 1 hour a day, until you die ?

  I would not commit murder because I think doing it is enough of a punishment. My not-terrible upbringing has led me to dislike such acts. I have nothing to gain from just murdering people and that has rather little to do with punitive consequences

  In rap there is often this theme of riding with the devil. Being “condemned”. Criminals view crime as their being, they view crime and punishment as their being. Big L, Tupac and Biggie have rapped at length about this. People will commit murder-suicides. Murder itself is usually worse than any punishment that could follow. It is a minority that thinks it can really get away with murder.

  Or, let’s take a lighter crime: would you park your car in a no parking zone if you would be sure to be fined every time you do it ?

  I don’t drive a car. I think it’s an outdated technology.

  The problem is not how harsh is the punishment but how sure you are to be punished: you can have a death sentence for murder but if your probability to be caught is 1% it is not a deterrent.

  I would agree that a functioning society needs to be able to take care of itself. I would agree that people need to keep their eyes peeled. I would agree that someone going on a killing spree needs to be contained for the safety of others and themselves. Rehabilitation would be called for in cases of violent infractions. But the punitive angle doesn’t grab issues at their root, it’s much more a way of pruning phenomena in a way that appears palatable at first glance.

  Yes, and it is necessary.

  I am going to let this end-in-itself stand as is.

  No. Simply because even if I am currently not a state servant or business owner (but I was both of them) there is nothing that stop me from being one once I had the prerequisites (for being a state servant) or I want to start a business.

  The phrasing here is a little unclear to me. I presume you mean that you want to preserve the potentiality of becoming a state servant or business owner. Statistically speaking (and logically speaking) workers don’t just move up the ladder. If everyone could the system as it is would implode and we know that it’s self-correcting against collapsing in on itself. As a worker it’s very difficult to start a business because you need money and time to plan. Oftentimes you fail because the real world is noisy and certainties are few.

  Maybe but I am pretty sure that if there was not a set of rules then society as we intend it would fall in a very short time frame.

  I don’t know about this. ISIS in Syria went against conventions. Now ISIS is practically in power. Now that they are in charge of a state they were forced to liberalise and adapt their previous rules and convictions. Exactly the same thing has happened in Afghanistan with Al-Qaeda. Afghanistan may not be the shining democracy that people envision as an ideal, but it’s not too different from the West-allied UAE, Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain. It seems to be the case that rules, in the sense of rules that are written down, come after activity.

  Relationships between people work once the people know that if the do something wrong there is some sort of punishment, else it would become something like “the strongest rules” very fast.

  But the punishment here does not come out of thin air. There is a monopoly on violence that is in the hands of the state. The state presents itself as the biggest on the block – it is already similar to the rule of the strongest. Aside from that, relationships between people work because because humans are social animals that tend to be cooperative, that is how evolution made us. It is more fundamental than a fear of punishment causing people to behave a certain way. I could ask why friendships work without punishment. If I am with my friend, the last thing that I want to envision are punishments for them or myself. /

  It is not an EU problem, it is their problem. Why we should try to solve a problem they created for themselves.

  It is a problem that the UK and the EU created. It is a problem of the contradiction between the local level and the international level. This problem is quite relevant for the EU, because it signals greater antagonisms affecting the entirety of Europe. /

  But what you are saying is that UK was so full of itself that they think that EU would beg to them to make treaties at their (UK) conditions.

  Yes of course. It’s analogous to Trump’s talks about making deals on his own terms. A nation is not an intelligent being, it’s quite the opposite. Nations are scared and driven by competition. Just because there are a couple of smartiepants designing policy, does not necessarily mean that a nation makes decisions that are clear and intelligent in historical retrospect. I feel there is in fact a quite libidnal quality to the nature of nations. /

  No. Killing in a war has rules too. And a soldier can refuse to follow and order. True, you follow orders but if the order is unlawful you must refuse to follow it, since the “I was following the orders” defence does not work.

  Assuming rules are static and respected: Wars cause innovation because either side seeks to win. Technical novelties are extremely important. You may not see mustard gas be used or soldiers being blinded by lasers, but you might have to deal with new technology for which no specific laws exist. There are these magical battle technologies called autonomous drones and autonomous turrets.

  Rules are not static and can be liberalised in the case of war. Everything the Wehrmacht was doing was legal according to the laws in Germany at that time. These rules were tuned to benefit Germany as a military power. You can say organisations like the U.N. exist to act like an ombudsman between warring nations, however the U.N. only has power as long as it is supported by the nations it is supposed to keep in check. The U.N., NATO, BRICS, and the EU may collapse. When these organisations collapse it becomes a question of the winning side in a war, or rather controlling sides in the case of warring parties continuing to exist after conflict, as to who did what wrong.

  I can also break the rules in favour of my superiors and hope I receive their good will. I can lie and say I was following rules. What’s important here is the authority judging me in the end turning a blind eye and that has happened time and time again throughout history. Operation Paperclip is a fairly decent example of this. It makes sense that rule breakers would use the following-orders defence since the rules are made by those declaring the orders.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 8 Sep 2026

• To be polite to others?

  Oh, politeness. I forget, that is of course the motivator of behaviour. Not interests or economics, forget about those of course.

  Why every discussion about rules need to end with citing immigrants ?

  Not every discussion about rules ends with citing immigrants. Immigrants are relevant here – see the article – and the rules that exist favour either rich immigrants or people with citizenship. And migrants do make the world go round, look at doctors, people working in industry and so on.

  Obviously not, death penalty alone would not work if you are pretty sure to not be caught. What you really need is to be sure that if you break the law there will be a penalty, and a hard one if you commit a murder.

  All of that is after the fact. After murders have happened. Murderers know they will be punished harshly and do it anyway. The interesting question is how to prevent murders without strictly relying on harsh punishments since that is something murders factor in…

  Like every penalty if you think about it.

  So you do recognise rules are forced upon subjects by an authority, in this case the state. I assume you are not a state servant or business owner, do you also recognise that the state wants to squeeze you of every ounce of labour so that it can do its deed to perpetuate its system of class rule? It’s hens OKing the fox guarding the hen house.

  No. Following the rules is the base for a society to be functional.

  Society is not merely a set of rules. Society is made up of relations between people and physical infrastructure such as housing and workplaces. What you think of as rules are at best for edge cases. Most people don’t go about their day thinking about rules, those who do are a small minority which most would generally label bean counters. You have a highly idealistic conception of why things work.

  Beside, when UK decide to leave the EU, they know very well what the consequences would be, they simply choose to ignore them, or they were convinced that the UK could have imposed their conditions on EU.

  Actually, no those who voted did not understand the consequences. To understand the consequences you would need to spend time that most people don’t have because they work. Nationalistic thinktanks that position themselves against German (and French) competition pour a bunch of money into campaigns that say the UK will be paradise after Brexit and the people lap it up. Not that this is the thing that brought us Brexit, there was a nationalistic sentiment that existed before Brexit was even a concept. This has a logic, and it has very little to do with rigorously rational voting.

  But yeah, what you are saying, about needing to follow rules and whatnot, is exactly the same thing someone killing for the military would say. “I need to follow the rules, if I didn’t something bad happens or society collapses into complete disorder”

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 8 Sep 2026

• Could you have done more to convince other people to do the same? Maybe, I don’t know you.

  That is mean to imply they haven’t. You are treating democracy as an end in it itself while ignoring the fact that systemically speaking large decisions, even when backed with a democratic vote, have strongly tended to side with capital. Brexit for example is a pretty good example of competition between the UK and Germany.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 7 Sep 2026

• This is just pure moralism that doesn’t engage with my argument. If you want my opinion though, I don’t think he should have been executed.

  O’Bryan knew about capital punishment in his state’s legislation and probably took it into account like almost all murderers do. It did not prevent him from killing his son. You are making my case that the death penalty does not prevent murder. There are statistics from all over the world to back this up. Homicide rates are not at all well correlated with the severity of punishment. They are much better correlated with education and poverty rates.

  What you are doing is this: You are taking one rather ugly case and using it to justify the status quo or populist sentiment. What if I talked about the five times a trans person attacked a woman? Does that justify how trans people are treated, how they are looked upon with doubt and disgust in this day and age? No. There are cases where whole families are doing well organised welfare fraud. Does that justify the rabidness with which states treat people in need – like significantly lowering payouts when a family member starts menial work? No. Do these couple of cases of welfare fraud deserve the attention they’re getting? I don’t think so.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 7 Sep 2026

• 'Following orders’ is a part of humanity

  Human nature argument that can be safely ignored.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 7 Sep 2026

• NoT JuSt rusSiA

  That is kind of the case? But never mind. I am not downplaying Russia’s efforts, at the same time I am not going to blind myself to intrinsic facts about economies like the US’.

  but that doesn’t mean Putin’s oligarchy is finger licking innocent, or even just a minor player.

  I have never said they’re innocent ;_;

  it’s just that Putin’s oligarchy doesn’t need any unpaid (let’s hope) defence in internet forums.

  I think that can’t be argued against. Let’s extend that line of thinking to Palantir, Elbit Systems, Facebook and so on.

  I know there are one or two Putinists and unabashed Ayatollah fans on the .ml instance but it’s not representative of every user.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 7 Sep 2026

• It’s kind of absurd that they’re shaming the place that is more or less the originator of Lemmy. I think it’s the third time in a month or so that someone used the instance I just happen to be using as an “argument” for why I’m wrong.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 6 Sep 2026

• But in the world we live in, this is sadly not the case and we must stick to the rules that the people have agreed to.

  Who says we must? F the rules, it’s not like it’s in the interest of those who actually make the world go round. Immigrants for example.

  The rules in this case are, the people of Britain have voted to leave the EU and all its benefits, so these new rules must be followed.

  There was a poll about the death penalty some time ago in an EU country. The majority of those polled were in favour of the death penalty. Does the death penalty prevent murders? No it doesn’t. It’s just another terrorist tool that the populace OKs to have used upon itself in certain cases.

  Your logic is exactly the same of following orders and denouncing undesirables. It is no better than what UKIP and Sweden Democrats base their decision making on, in fact it boils down to the same thing. It’s nationalism.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 6 Sep 2026

• Hello .ml account.

  Hi?

  The Russian interference with both the 2016 US Presidential elections through Cambridge Analytica and Brexit is very much documented through ISC’s “Russia Report” (July 2020).

  This doesn’t prove anything, except affirm what I was saying about interference. Russia was not the only culprit behind Trump winning 2016, there are also factors other factors outside of that. Structural changes in rural communities for example and the aftershocks of 2008.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 6 Sep 2026

• People love to squabble about the specifics. Whether or not people should have applied early for citizenship/visas, democratic mechanisms, about who is to blame, who deserves what and such, if we should focus on other groups of immigrants &co. I think most people here in the comments are overlooking the deeply disgusting and hurtful nature of nationalism. How about we say that is not in our interest? No matter if it’s nationalism in the case of Brexit or Swedes cracking down on immigration.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 6 Sep 2026

• but they really should have started the citizenship process right when the right honourable, friend of the pigs, Mr. Cameron announced they would have the vote

  I don’t think it’s straight-forward like that.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 6 Sep 2026

• I agree Putin is a bastard, like any great man currently in power, though I think he’s not behind everything. It’s like saying the Nazis won because of French or American influence to destabilise the Weimar republic. Certainly, efforts were made to destabilise competing nations, but only focusing on that ignores the crises that to this day continue to bring forward reactionary sentiment. Sweden for example has high rates of unemployment.

  on Sweden confirms 458 Britons deported or forcibly removed since Brexit in c/europe@feddit.org · 6 Sep 2026

• Ze Germans are again feared rocketeers!

  on Private German rocket makes history, reaches orbit from European soil in c/europe@feddit.org · 5 Sep 2026

• Very fed coded

  on Get paid in Monero to pull down flock cameras in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 5 Sep 2026

• What the hell are you even trying to say then?

  on Swedish minister defends strict post-Brexit removals of Britons in c/europe@feddit.org · 4 Sep 2026

• This I have a problem with. The people outside of the UK did not vote in favour of Brexit, yet they suffer significantly due to it. The people inside of the UK who were not planning on going anywhere voted for Brexit. You cannot blame individuals or minorities for decisions made by the masses – in the case of Brexit a decision that was made narrowly.

  Reverse Brexit, join the EU, get all your benefits back. Easy.

  A flippant and cynical way of saying “your fault!”

  “The survey reveals that 95% of EU-based expatriates who voted in the 2016 referendum favoured Remain over Leave while three-quarters of EU based expatriates claimed Brexit definitely influenced their voting choice in 2019.”

  on Swedish minister defends strict post-Brexit removals of Britons in c/europe@feddit.org · 4 Sep 2026

• It’s easy to say that these UK nationals should have just followed the rules. I think it’s a tragedy either way. Sweden cracks down on immigrants with a heavy hand to satisfy those who imagine themselves endangered by outsiders.

  Immigrants are a very well behaved group as long as they aren’t excluded from participating in social life. Immigrants don’t come to a country to do worse, they come to a country to do make use of the opportunity to do better. The Swedish crackdown on immigration is purely nationalistic in nature and a sign of hard times ahead for the entire world.

  I would understand the snark about privileged immigrants such as those from the UK and the shitshow that was Brexit if it didn’t also affirm the logic of immigration crackdowns in general. These people are losing livelihoods, friends and family. That is tough no matter where you are from. Cheering it on with no sense of pity means that you are gleefully cheering on workers getting stomped on.

  on Swedish minister defends strict post-Brexit removals of Britons in c/europe@feddit.org · 4 Sep 2026

• Charities are famously reliable and that unkills the people who were killed by Nazi Germany for businesses like his

  on The death of Germany's richest man creates one of Europe's biggest foundations in c/europe@feddit.org · 4 Sep 2026

• How?

  on The death of Germany's richest man creates one of Europe's biggest foundations in c/europe@feddit.org · 2 Sep 2026

• True, but books about nutrition should cite the best available science.

  on What's something people should buy today instead of tomorrow? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 29 Aug 2026

• Purchase pre-LLM era physical books on foraging, cooking, home and auto repair, electronics, child care, etc.

  Get E-books released right around 2022 (but not after) on Anna’s Archive if your money is low. It’s important that the info is somewhat fresh. A lot has changed since the 1980s

  on What's something people should buy today instead of tomorrow? in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 28 Aug 2026

• Apparently this guy is Abdul El-Sayed’s opponent

  on US Politician on privacy rights: “You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy was violated” in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 27 Aug 2026

• If I kill someone without them noticing I would not be a murderer by that logic.

  on US Politician on privacy rights: “You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy was violated” in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 27 Aug 2026

• I use Manjaro, btw

  on Just Draw in c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world · 24 Aug 2026