26 ms·

How would you know? In countries without free speech where anti-government speech is illegal, the only legal speech is pro-government or neutral.

derelicta 1y ago
I would know cuz there are independent polls made by western NGOs: https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index
- scott_w 1y ago
  Immaterial how independent they are because it's completely impossible to get honest opinions of repressive regimes. The people within the regime have no real way to know whether a poll response will make it back to the government or not, so they must assume that it will. When the repercussions for having the wrong opinion are that you disappear or find yourself "volunteered" for the front line, it's best to either lie or say you think the leader is a top bloke. You can watch Youtube videos of citizens refusing to answer contentious questions quite easily. I believe William Spaniel has produced videos (relating to the Russian General Election) where he points this out, too.
  - derelicta 1y ago
    How can you tell it is a repressive regime? They have elections, a press and they are pretty satisfied about their form of governance, actually much more than their western counterparts. So let me sum this up. We cannot ask the people. We cannot base ourselves on how their institutions function and how well they perform. This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs), and everything outside of their little group of friends is a masquerade. The issue with that is that westerners disconnect themselves from reality. They are losing ground and it shows.
    - arccy 1y ago
      if people refuse to answer contentious questions about their regime... it's probably repressive.
      - derelicta 1y ago
        Germans and Americans refuse to answer contentious questions about the genocide of Palestinian... They also probably live in a repressive regime, right? (Also I agree with you, Russia is a capitalist dictatorship)
        immibis 1y ago
        I live in Germany. It's repressive as fuck. Not being repressive in the standard ways isn't the same as not being repressive. You can say you don't like the chancellor or the party all day long, but you can get arrested for even calling the P_________n situation a g______, for saying anything bad about any person (even if true), doing pretty much anything requires a government license, owner-operators have unlimited liability for everything their business does unless they jump through a whole bunch of hoops and put up a $25k bond, and the government still keeps a registry of where every Jew lives just in case they need that again. Everything interesting mostly flies under the government radar. There's a lot of it.
    - scott_w 1y ago
      Organisations try to measure this: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu > This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs) You are quite literally commenting on a topic where Brits are complaining about our democracy. You will find reams of articles about the problems with western democracies. However, you're also commenting about countries that quite literally changed our governments in the last year. USA voted in Trump, the UK voted in Labour. Germany just voted in a new party. China and Russia, the main comparison points, have not changed government since the 90s. This is nothing to do with phenotypes, it's 100% just looking at the facts.
  - jampekka 1y ago
    When asked in a way where the opinion can't be identified, the support numbers do drop significantly, but the approval is still estimated to be about 50-70%. In western countries governments with clear minority support start to be almost the norm. UK government approval has surpassed 50% in a handful of polls in over 10 years, and approval peaks are typically immediately after elections before the government starts to implement its policies. The approval is currently 14%. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-approval https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-app... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/do-chinese-citizens-conceal-opposition-to-the-ccp-in-surveys-evidence-from-two-experiments/12A2440F948D016E8D845C492F7D0CFE https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/arti...
    - scott_w 1y ago
      > When asked in a way where the opinion can't be identified, the support numbers do drop significantly Bear in mind that the person answering the poll still lives in an oppressive regime where wrongthink can get you killed. You spend your whole life training yourself to never say anything bad about the government in public. Would you be able to turn it off? Also, there’s literally no free press in these countries. The government will get primarily positive coverage whatever they do! The current Labour government could only dream of such coverage!

derelicta 1y ago

I would know cuz there are independent polls made by western NGOs: https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index

scott_w 1y ago
Immaterial how independent they are because it's completely impossible to get honest opinions of repressive regimes. The people within the regime have no real way to know whether a poll response will make it back to the government or not, so they must assume that it will. When the repercussions for having the wrong opinion are that you disappear or find yourself "volunteered" for the front line, it's best to either lie or say you think the leader is a top bloke. You can watch Youtube videos of citizens refusing to answer contentious questions quite easily. I believe William Spaniel has produced videos (relating to the Russian General Election) where he points this out, too.
- derelicta 1y ago
  How can you tell it is a repressive regime? They have elections, a press and they are pretty satisfied about their form of governance, actually much more than their western counterparts. So let me sum this up. We cannot ask the people. We cannot base ourselves on how their institutions function and how well they perform. This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs), and everything outside of their little group of friends is a masquerade. The issue with that is that westerners disconnect themselves from reality. They are losing ground and it shows.
  - arccy 1y ago
    if people refuse to answer contentious questions about their regime... it's probably repressive.
    - derelicta 1y ago
      Germans and Americans refuse to answer contentious questions about the genocide of Palestinian... They also probably live in a repressive regime, right? (Also I agree with you, Russia is a capitalist dictatorship)
      - immibis 1y ago
        I live in Germany. It's repressive as fuck. Not being repressive in the standard ways isn't the same as not being repressive. You can say you don't like the chancellor or the party all day long, but you can get arrested for even calling the P_________n situation a g______, for saying anything bad about any person (even if true), doing pretty much anything requires a government license, owner-operators have unlimited liability for everything their business does unless they jump through a whole bunch of hoops and put up a $25k bond, and the government still keeps a registry of where every Jew lives just in case they need that again. Everything interesting mostly flies under the government radar. There's a lot of it.
  - scott_w 1y ago
    Organisations try to measure this: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu > This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs) You are quite literally commenting on a topic where Brits are complaining about our democracy. You will find reams of articles about the problems with western democracies. However, you're also commenting about countries that quite literally changed our governments in the last year. USA voted in Trump, the UK voted in Labour. Germany just voted in a new party. China and Russia, the main comparison points, have not changed government since the 90s. This is nothing to do with phenotypes, it's 100% just looking at the facts.
- jampekka 1y ago
  When asked in a way where the opinion can't be identified, the support numbers do drop significantly, but the approval is still estimated to be about 50-70%. In western countries governments with clear minority support start to be almost the norm. UK government approval has surpassed 50% in a handful of polls in over 10 years, and approval peaks are typically immediately after elections before the government starts to implement its policies. The approval is currently 14%. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-approval https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-app... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/do-chinese-citizens-conceal-opposition-to-the-ccp-in-surveys-evidence-from-two-experiments/12A2440F948D016E8D845C492F7D0CFE https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/arti...
  - scott_w 1y ago
    > When asked in a way where the opinion can't be identified, the support numbers do drop significantly Bear in mind that the person answering the poll still lives in an oppressive regime where wrongthink can get you killed. You spend your whole life training yourself to never say anything bad about the government in public. Would you be able to turn it off? Also, there’s literally no free press in these countries. The government will get primarily positive coverage whatever they do! The current Labour government could only dream of such coverage!