zlacker

>>mmaria+(OP)
Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.

>>zapthe+zf
The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're seeing those with a few quid to rub together leave, but as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income.

On the NHS, I tried for years to push for improvements to switch to digital cancer screening invitations after they missed my mother (offering to build the software for free), which is now happening, but suggesting the NHS isn't perfect is against the religion here. My sister who works in NHS DEI hasn't spoken to me since publishing a book on it.

Every time someone with the finances, vision and ability leaves I think the situation gets a little bit worse, it increases the proportion of people remaining willing to put up with all of it. Anecdotally, many of my friends have already left, some of the older generation want to leave but feel tied in. My flight out is in 6 weeks. Good riddance, no doubt.

>>cs02rm+Cm
> Taxes are rising (with tax take falling)

> just mentioning increased immigration

One of these seems like the solution to the other.

> as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income

Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe.

I started working with folks from the UK right at the start when social media really took off, and I personally think that what ails the UK is the same as what ails the world. Too much social media.

The UK has always been an empire in decline, but the wheels didn't come off until everyone became glued to feeds. It's Garbage In, Garbage Out. If your view of reality is driven by stuff that you see online, it's a distorted lens which then leads to distorted decision making that then leads to authoritarian creep.

Just my 2¢.

>>areofo+R51
I always thought linking all the main things not working in the actual world to the alienation caused by too much digital consumption to be wrong/not really making sense. However, gradually, I am getting closer and closer to that conclusion... In your case, what brought you to the stance "Too much social media is what ails the whole world"? What do you think we could do to solve it?

>>winter+Xe1
If you go back in history you can find examples of people making the same claims about too much television. Prior to that, too much radio. Prior to that, too much newspaper consumption.

A common thread is that when people complain about too much media consumption, they’re always talking about other people consuming other media. Few people believe their own consumption to be a societal level problem. Almost nobody believes that their sources of media are the bad ones. It’s always about other sources that other people are consuming.

This is why age verification has the most support of these topics: Adults see it as targeted specifically at a group that isn’t them (young people) whose media they dislike the most.

>>Aurorn+3i1
That doesn't make those claims invalid. Too much television is also a problem, and a lot of television content is junk. Tabloid newspapers are a scourge, as are opinion writers whose output often consists of fallacious propaganda designed to maximize confirmation bias.