Shouldn't countries have the right to control activities inside their borders? The order was approved by the courts, so insofar as due process and checks and balances go, this seems fine. This is no different than any other sort of injunction or court order. What should be the alternative? That the internet should be some sort of lawless wild west? Opposing this on the basis of "they'll extend it to political opposition ..." makes as much sense as opposing the arrest of criminals because "they'll extend it to political opposition ...".
Trying to graft the Internet onto physical country borders has been fraught from the very beginning, but they keep trying. When a user in country A, connected to a satellite Internet provider headquartered in country B, through a VPN whose offices are in country C and their VPN server is in country D, looks up an IP address with a DNS server in country E, to a web site whose headquarters is in country F, and request a file hosted on servers distributed across countries G, H, I, J, and K, whose laws should apply?
In the country where the physical person making the request is located would be a logical solution. Not saying it would be a good solution, but that would follow the logic of most international fiscal law. Super hard to implement though.
How is that supposed to work? If I open port 80 on my desktop I'm suddenly liable in every foreign jurisdiction that has user able to reach me on port 80?
"It has an answer" is not how you decide a policy question. It's rather important that the answer be reasonable rather than capricious, burdensome and ineffective.
All the laws that we broke out of were established and had an answer to questions of life: land ownership, slavery, social structure, rights of various groups of people, etc.
The laws that apply on the internet are very desperate attempts by people with no technical knowledge to control something that can't be controlled. They work only because ways to circumvent them are not yet easy to use by the masses.
> Trying to graft the Internet onto physical country borders has been fraught from the very beginning
I’d argue Silicon Valley pretending there is a natural arc of digital history towards freedom and enlightenment if we just leave everything alone is distinctly reminiscent of 90s free-trade optimism. And like that philosophy, this too one finds its tombstone in China.
> Shouldn't countries have the right to control activities inside their borders?
Using the word "activities" implies that something different than what's really happening.
Ask the question like this: Should countries have the right to control information inside their borders? The answer to that question is no.
> Opposing this on the basis of "they'll extend it to political opposition ..." makes as much sense as opposing the arrest of criminals because "they'll extend it to political opposition ...".
If you make it less expensive to do something, you make it more likely that it happens. Incarcerating murderers and rapists is very important and is an effective deterrent against serious violent crimes, so creating prisons that make it easier to incarcerate political prisoners is bad but the thing it's necessary in order to do is more important.
Blocking streaming sites isn't nearly as important and it's also less effective for its intended purpose than it is for the ulterior purpose, because users will go out of their way to bypass censorship of streaming sites whereas inconvenient political content is censored not just with respect to its content but also its existence, and then if you create a censorship apparatus it allows people to be kept in the dark as to what is even being censored. So in that case the badness of the censorship apparatus existing far exceeds its value in being able to inconvenience some minor offenders.
The state exists to enforce the interests of capital against the interests of the people. This is a clear instance of that happening.
Do you really believe that the interests of the people are inferior to the interests of capital? Do you actually believe that the interests of each group are aligned?
The alternative is the belief that humans have some fundamental rights that it's unjust for governments to violate (e.g. the right to private, encrypted communication), and designing systems to make it as hard as possible for governments to violate those rights.
>The alternative is the belief that humans have some fundamental rights that it's unjust for governments to violate (e.g. the right to private, encrypted communication)
In what country is there actually a "right to private, encrypted communication"? At best there's rights for "privacy", which is a pretty woolly concept, but generally don't cover copyright infringement. More to the point, unless you reject the concept of copyright entirely, you have to accept that free speech rights will have to be "violated" to enforce it.
"fundamental rights" implies an ideological belief that those rights should exist for all humans, regardless of whether any country recognizes them or not.
> In what country is there actually a "right to private, encrypted communication"?
I recognize that this is not a popular opinion, but IMHO IT SHOULD BE covered by the "secure in their papers" section in the 4th Amendment in the US, and/or with established precedent regulating encryption export as armaments, by the 2nd & the Heller decision granting the rights afforded by the 2nd to the individual
at least that's the correct interpretation of the founding document as far as I can tell. not that it matters anymore.
Because the internet is purely an information medium, so "borders" on the internet can be nothing other than censorship. Censorship is a human rights violation and is disproportionately useful to oppressive regimes.
Why should it not? What's the point of having an effectively open information network if you're going to just let each nation state arbitrarily censor/manipulate it as they see fit for their own peasants?
You'd agree with say, <insert country> mass blocking sites for their people just because the sites say something about democracy?
Eh. "The practice" of blocking some kinds of speech has been in place for a long time. Some countries use it for political oppression, and others don't.
Giving up civil rights for the perennial boogiemen like terrorism or CSAM never results in less terrorism or CSAM, but does erode the rights of individuals.
The goal is to establish an undemocratic method of control over and coercion of individuals and the means of communication. This has been borne out time and time again.
Requiring a government run cellmodem camera in every residence's home and bathroom would presumably help combat child abuse-- probably vastly better than DNS blocking as well. Am I correct in assuming you'd be all for it?
What do you mean “could be”? Those are both examples of censorship, not non-censorship things thar can be acheived by tools that can also be used for censorship.
But, no, some censorship is acceptable and necessary. But we have to be aware of—and appropriately guard against—the other kind, and sometimes that means having less capacity for the kind that would be acceptable than you would want if there was downside attached to it.
I’d rather have a free Internet than a restricted one to a small number of individuals using it for unethical behavior. It’s a small price to pay for freedom.
Introducing discriminatory policies against the type of intelligence of the submitter is a bigoted and substratist viewpoint propagated by the encepharchy.
You get a lot of devs with 20+ years of experience with very respectable wages (in European terms) who are not able to implement fizz buzz by themselves within any reasonable timeframe.
The younger devs, although considerably more skilled due to more recent education, aren't encouraged and mostly lack ambition, all they have to do (and can do) to make a good income is to hang around until they have 20+ years of experience.
The SWEs will buy more stuff and eat out more, increasing the demand for retail and restaurant workers. It does trickle down, but due to continuous influx (because qualification requirements are low) of new potential retail and restaurant workers you don't notice on an individual level but on a globalized level it matters because those new retail/restaurant workers have improved themselves.
Denmark and the Netherlands have the highest income tax bracket at 52/53%. Germany is 43%. However they are stacked taxes.
In Germany (where I reside), the first €9744 (2021) is untaxed, then 14% until a certain amount (can't find it atm) and max 43%. However, if you do your tax returns your effective tax rate will drop significantly.
I'd wager that most pay around 25% in total income taxes, excluding things like the health insurance and other taxes.
However, we indeed do not worry about saving up money to put our kids through school.
Earning 65k which what most companies in the tech scene now offer to lure them in as a SWE in Germany is a great salary realistically, considering for example an architect with a masters degree will earn around 55k and no real improvement in sight.
Also don't forget to factor in that the concept of being fired for PROPER reason is nearly impossible in most European countries. Even if an employer hits hard times they cannot just lay off an entire department to quickly green out the numbers in the books, there needs to be proper grounds. I currently need to give my employer 3 months notice before I can even leave, same goes for them to me.
I was laid off recently due to the pandemic. Because I work in tech, it took me two weeks to find a new job and it ended up being a promotion and a 20% raise. I would make 40% less in Europe, even in a big city, and unless I lived in a small European town my cost of living would be quite a lot higher. Even factoring healthcare (contrary to what Europeans perceive, the healthcare system works very well for the upper middle class) and student loan debt, I’m far better off financially than I would be in Europe.
Of course, this isn’t true for Americans in general. I want us to adopt European social policies; however, for SWEs, the financials are just better in the US.
> contrary to what Europeans perceive, the healthcare system works very well for the upper middle class)
... until you get a really expensive chronic disease. And then it fails miserably.
I know upper middle class parents whose kids got a disease which need ~$5000/month meds for a few years (and nontrivial infusion center costs on top).
It worked ok for some, many had been informed that the insurance company decided not to pay - requiring lawsuits (some settled, some ongoing).
No European, Canadian or Israeli parent that I know of kid with the same disease ever had to fight or pay out of pocket - it was all covered by the single payer with no hassles.
Not defending the US healthcare system, but I’ve never heard of an insurance plan without an out of pocket maximum. For example, my plan has a 2k maximum for individuals and 4K for married couples. Combined with a health savings account (allowed to be funded pre-tax from both the employer and employee), I’ve generally put $1-2k a year in that during my 20s when I rarely needed medical expenses. I still haven’t had a year where I’ve spent more than I’ve saved to the point I could cover multiple years of out of pocket maximums just from that account.
And since it’s a “savings account” I can invest the tax-free savings into the stock market with index funds. I’ve actually had a decent amount of growth in that account just from stock market gains.
2k max out of pocket expense to me sounds absolutely ludicrous.
In Germany you can have private health insurance (if you make more then 63k a year you can opt-out of public health insurance) and there the out of pocket is usually around €350. In the Netherlands the out of pocket is also something like €300, which most already consider too high.
The option to get it to zero is of course possible but usually doesn't offset the savings.
However the notion of having to need savings to be sick is... to me extremely foreign and strange.
Just out of curiosity. What would happen if, for any reason, you lose the capacity to work for a couple of years? Let's say that you have a bad accident that affects your hands, or you get a depression.
I agree that American healthcare needs reform (and I want single prayer in particular), but I’ve never heard of an insurance company refusing to cover a necessary drug, at least not any health insurance plan that an upper middle class family might have.
> the healthcare system works very well for the upper middle class
See, that's the point. In Europe it works well for everyone, no matter how much you earn. It's a mentality-thing in the end (where the US position is hard to grasp for Europeans).
I’m not following your point; we might even agree. My point was: despite less legal protection, American SWEs still enjoy a lot of security even during a pandemic (which isn’t a tech crisis but still dramatically impacted many tech companies). Because I make like 80% more than what I would make in Europe, I also am able to save and invest (6 months expenses saved up in a savings account). I also give a good portion to charities and political causes (so hopefully one day America can work well for people who aren’t SWEs).
My point was that we haven't had a job crisis in the software field, for a while. That would be a true test. I have no idea when it will happen but it's reasonable to assume that nothing keeps going up forever.
Fair enough, but it only tells you how each system performs under anomalously bad events (I don't think this is a "true test"). And to my earlier point, when you're making 80% more than you would in Europe, you can save a lot of money to float you through hard times. Notably, I still don't think you'd be particularly well-off in Europe--European worker protection rights don't help if your company goes under, and you won't have a cushy savings account. I'm guessing unemployment is a bit better than in the US, and obviously healthcare will be better, but on balance I don't think your average SWE would be any better off. Of course, this doesn't extrapolate beyond the upper-middle-class and above; poorer Americans are almost certainly worse-off than their European counterparts (and I want to see that remedied).
Except for financially dubious start-ups, getting laid off at a tech company comes with a fairly nice severance package. Dropbox, for example, is giving 3 months salary, Q1 equity, and 100% of 2020 bonuses.
Interestingly enough, I wrote above about this as well but with the opposite sentiment. The Spitzensteuersatz of 42% is applicable for income from 57k€ onwards. That's hardly rich and hardly deserving of so much tax. Meanwhile I could earn millions through investments and dividends and would only pay 25% capital gains tax. Also, 25% sounds ridiculously low when you add up the income tax, social contributions, sales tax, capital gains tax etc. Not to forget yes the 7%/14% you pay for health insurance. Or you have cherry-picked a family of 4 with one person earning 45k€ a year and drawing the most Kindergeld possible.
One way things might become more competitive is when more people become freelancers. The freelance market is more volatile than the rigidly regulated traditional labor markets allowing for larger pay increases during good times (and also decreases during bad times), in general, it approaches a more realistic compensation of real added value.
Personally I've greatly benefited from becoming a freelancer in Europe and have never been one day unemployed since I started over 7 years ago (4 different customers in total). The significantly higher income (almost 3 times my old, already decently above average, _net_ income) royally compensates the lack of unemployment benefits or reduced pensions.
I feel that if more devs would become freelancers it would create real upward pressure towards compensation because compensation isn't entrenched in company policies and regulations.
One downside is the proliferation of those in-between rent-seeking businesses, they're probably needed to get started initially but they take huge cuts and have a lot of absurd contract requirements so it's wise to develop an active strategy to find jobs without them.
I think what the OP had in mind and what is actually common in Europe is "contracting". It's basically a full-time position, but you're brought in as an independent company (mostly to circumvent labor laws and sometimes tax laws as well) and not an employee. It's all basically a widespread scam to work around dysfunctional laws. BTW job sites in UK even the the "permanent employee/contractor" toggle for searching through full-time positions.
Start by defining your rate. Find out how much you cost to your current employer (including any additional costs and taxes your employment incurs which you never get to see), add at least 10% for shifting risk towards yourself (e.g. when you get ill the employer doesn't need to pay, cheap to fire you, etc.). Try to read up on some taxation basics and try to understand what your net income would be.
Don't worry about not being good enough for freelancing, there's a market for juniors as well, it's all reflected in the rate.
Start looking for contracts: e.g. just search for "reactjs contract london". You'll find some stuff, but keep in mind most contracts never even get published as the recruiters also have people on call. See how the rates align with what you have in mind, note which skills you know are in high demand, make a list of companies that are involved, contact their recruiters through linkedin by sending your CV and rate, say you're a starting contractor so you need a bit of time to set things up. They will understand, everybody has to start. Things move pretty quickly in that world, once you have a contract, contact an accountant and set up your business and off you go.
You might want to be a bit more flexible (e.g. in terms of location) in the beginning just so you can get started. Once you're up and running, things move by themselves. Keep in mind you'll probably be poor during the first year because you have to upfront taxes and things like that.
Don't let them push your rate down too much, rates are negotiable but keep in mind the customer will probably be paying an already agreed upon rate and you're just giving the recruiters more rent for doing nothing.
If you become a tax hacker you can _really_ optimize your income, don't expect accountants to do an exceptional job for you. Tax systems aren't that different from a quirky legacy code base you can hack around in. Talking to people who are also interested in that might help as well, some people are real tax nerds.
Who decides what is a lie and what is the truth? Does the intention to lie matter or is an accidental lie (e.g. a quoting mistake) an offence as well? Is telling incomplete truths or ignoring important or relevant facts lying? Is representing information in a factually correct but misleading or easy to misinterpret way lying?
