7 ms·
Disney made a movie about this called Night Crossing in the early 1980s. More recently, there's a 2018 German movie about it called Balloon. [0] https://www.im
by nrjames 8mo ago
Disney made a movie about this called Night Crossing in the early 1980s. More recently, there's a 2018 German movie about it called Balloon.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7125774 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7125774
- lukeweston1234 8mo agoThe 2018 film is a really good movie, I would highly recommend checking it out!
- tgsovlerkhgsel 8mo ago+1 to this! I wonder if some of the horror in it (the constant threat of the Stasi and its implications) translates well to non-German audiences. In case you're wondering about Germany's strict privacy laws - this is part of why they exist.
- elzbardico 8mo agoProbably this is an also big component in the notorious German preference for cash over cards.
- immibis 8mo agoThat was caused by interchange fees, and it has disappeared now.
- dgxyz 8mo agoIt’s still a thing in some areas from direct experience recently. Hell it’s still a thing with former East Germans I know in the UK. And it’s not about interchange fees - it’s about purchase surveillance. My ex partner wouldn’t even allow location services on her phone to put exif data in photos.
- petre 8mo ago> wouldn’t even allow location services on her phone to put exif data in photos This should be standard practice, I do it as well. Not East German but East European. We had our own Stasi that would terrorize youths for listening to Western music of Radio Free Europe.
- dgxyz 8mo agoYeah everyone suffered that side of things for sure. I'd rather have location recorded but not leaked out to whoever sold me the phone personally. I don't sync any files to the cloud already.
- elzbardico 8mo agoAre you german? Most of my german friends tell me it is because after the experiences of nazism and comunism (in the GDR), most germans value their privacy a lot.
- assaddayinh 8mo agoThe havoc that finding out your family and friends spied on you for benefits, can not be overstated. How deeply anti social and lonely such a divided and conquered socialist utopian society is can not be expressed in words, and yet it can. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesbeauftragter_f%C3%BCr_die_Stasi-Unterlagen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesbeauftragter_f%C3%BCr_di...
- 0928374082 8mo agoNowadays we don't even need family and friends to spy on you for benefits; websites and apps do it for advertising revenue.
- mitthrowaway2 8mo agoI wonder if future generations will wonder why being spied on and monitored was even noteworthy, let alone a cause for concern.
- ekianjo 8mo ago> Germany's strict privacy laws Not anymore.
- wolvoleo 8mo agoNo, on the contrary. Germany is a big proponent of chatcontrol.
- vlowrian 8mo agoThese are two very different things. Significant parts of the German government and many German members of the European Parliament are proponents of Chat Control. The general population, however, still has a strong desire for privacy and a deep fear of surveillance and data collection, shaped by historical experiences with two dictatorships (the Nazi era and the GDR). That said, there is a substantial disconnect between the substantive preferences of the voting population and the actual policies and decisions of the parties they elect. This is partly because promises like “internal security” gain much more traction in times of growing uncertainty and global instability, while only a relatively small portion of the population fully thinks through, or is willing to think through, the consequences and concrete legislative changes behind those promises. Nevertheless, looking at both public attitudes and court rulings, it is still fair to say that data protection in Germany, even compared to other EU countries, currently enjoys a particularly high status.
- qcnguy 8mo agoIn practice the average German voter is still supporting the coalition against the AfD despite that the coalition is implementing Soviet-like policies. They talk constantly about banning the most popular political party, for example, and they regularly imprison or fine people for anti-left political opinions. Germans who aren't actively supporting the AfD should feel no sense of moral superiority, there simply isn't anything in the historical context to feel proud of there.
- vlowrian 8mo ago
- js2 8mo ago> I wonder if some of the horror in it (the constant threat of the Stasi and its implications) translates well to non-German audiences. The film The Lives of Others should give folks a pretty good idea of what the Stasi was.
- dkga 8mo ago+1, really well-done movie!
- mndgs 8mo ago+2, very nice movie. Might be very eye-opening for any some about what it was like under USSR umbrella...
- omnibrain 8mo agoIt's interesting that this is a serious movie by the director Michael 'Bully' Herbig, who is generally known for bad taste comedies, full of clichees about race and sexuality.
- hungryhobbit 8mo ago[flagged]
- dang 8mo agoI appreciate your concern for comment quality! but this is the kind of point that depends on how someone is using HN overall. If an account were doing this repetitively in a way that didn't feel like genuine conversation, that would be quite different than a case like this, where there's no sign of such a pattern and the account is using HN quite as intended - randomly walking through topics of curiosity. It seems more likely that nrjames just happened to remember those movies* and wanted to make sure they got a mention in the thread. That's fine! I'd say this guideline is relevant here: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (* as have others, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46652703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46652703)
- NedF 8mo ago[dead]
- foota 8mo agoI watched Night Crossing in my german class in high school. I remember it being intense.
- wolvoleo 8mo agoFor the 80s it was intense yes. Watching it now that same tension feels milder but I guess that's because every single TV show now has to have constant explosions, car crashes etc in it. There is actually gunfire in it and a teenager dies in the beginning but it still feels less intense due to the 80s pace IMO.
- wolvoleo 8mo agoGreat movie yes! The 1980s one, I have not seen the new one.
- CMay 8mo agoThey have the 2018 movie free to watch on Fandango At Home, which doesn't even require you to login to watch it: https://athome.fandango.com/content/browse/details/Balloon/1320363 https://athome.fandango.com/content/browse/details/Balloon/1...
- mixmastamyk 8mo agoI watched it on Kanopy last night, free but you have to log in with a library card. The fandango link above asked for $2.99.