Western governments don't even protect their own citizens from this. In fact they encourage it if they deem you a political enemy.
There are many European political dissidents here that had dozens of bank accounts canceled on them. Sometimes the only way to have a bank account after reaching a certain level of popularity is to bank in countries like Georgia, Bulgaria etc. where nobody has heard of you. Until they, too, cancel your account and you're unbanked again and unable to participate in a modern economy.
IMO the only way out of this kind of oppression is crypto, at least in the long term.
I'm not aware of any Western European political dissidents who have had bank accounts cancelled, but it wouldn't surprise me if a fascist/racist like Tommy Robinson violated some hate speech law and had bank accounts he was receiving donations to cancelled.
It's very common for Venezuelan, Iranian and Cuban citizens to be targeted in this way, however. Even those with dual nationality.
The fundamental problem is that bank accounts are not considered a human right. As we become increasingly cashless this becomes more and more of a problem.
> I'm not aware of any Western European political dissidents who have had bank accounts cancelled
It’s not the same but it’s on its way there - in New Zealand Nicky Hagar wrote Dirty Politics - shady deals and hatchet jobs being performed by a sleazy blog at the behest of politicians (primarily the current leader of New Zealand’s largest opposition party, Judith Collins).
Under political pressure to act, police asked Westpac bank for 10 months of Hager's bank records and received them, falsely claiming he was being investigated for fraud. They did not have a warrant.
The whole disgusting episode was made farcical by the later revelation that police had searched Hagars house but missed documents leaked by Snowden.
Yes, but to be fair that can just as easily be because as soon as you earn enough reputation as a dissident you are buried (metaphorically! Western Europe is very velvet glove when it comes to murder).
Hi there, if it's ok with you I'm going to address subsequent commenters for a moment. Anyone smarter than me, let's focus on this comment. Isn't this the type of social media post that would be immediately dismissed as self-serving propaganda that has the effect of undermining both democracy and the dollar? What is the essential difference between this post and the kind of nonsense that is now being patrolled on other social media platforms?
Crypto cannot be a way out IMHO - resistance, outrage and press coverage can be. If you rely on technical measures to fight opression, you're doomed long term.
"Technical measures" are the necessary leverage to get into negotiation. Without any teeth, you can do as many demonstrations as you want, the enemy probably has a better propaganda machine than you and can win the pure opinion-shaping war long term.
People shape their opinion around the perceived space of possibilities. Good luck sustaining outrage on the long term against an enemy who can incentivize friendly public discourse with tangible rewards.
Because the problem here is companies being pressured by states for political ends.
So okay, route around the banking problem by switching to crypto. It's just 100 times harder for somebody to donate, and for the foundation to spend, but whatever.
Now this rogue nation state targets your landlords, your water company, your kids' school. How much can you route around or DIY before you're a prisoner?
The fix has to be other countries pushing back, ensuring freedom.
Just like with anything security, it's not about eliminating 100% of the risk but making it harder for enemies to attack you. Crypto might not be the holy grail solution, but securing your lifeline for living in society (money), is a pretty good start.
> Now this rogue nation state targets your landlords, your water company, your kids' school.
Without access to money you can't get any of these things. With cash, you can manage to find lodging, food and education for your kids.
The goal isn't really to "help people work in diverse environments". That's just a euphemism. What it really is, is a power grab to push white men out and people of color and ironically also white women in (who can always fall back on their gender to acclaim victim status and oppression).
No, thanks. Github was dead to me after they held "diversity" conferences telling people that "tech is not for white folks to lead" and the MS acquisition just sealed the deal. This just reaffirms it again, I will never drive any business or money towards Github.
The impact of immigration is even bigger. All first world nations have declining birth rates now and would reduce their population numbers substantially without immigration. Yet in many countries reach record population numbers on a yearly basis - because millions of immigrants keep pouring in.
I'd rather stop immigration before further driving our birth rates down and leaving world of the future to the low intelligence populations that are currently driving population growth on a global scale. The only ones following this "don't have children because of the climate" advice are those intelligent enough to do so. The whole thing is completely dysgenic in its nature.
Because the data strongly suggests that racial differences in general intelligence exist and exist due to genetic differences between populations. This idea makes certain people almost foam at the mouth (I've witnessed this personally and I'm only barely exaggerating).
Stephen Hsu, former VP of research at MSU for example was recently "canceled" from his job because he stated - in a very milquetoast and reasonable way - that even though he's aware that this kind of thing has been used to oppress people in the past, studies (specifically genome wide association studies) suggest that racial differences in intelligence are real and largely due to underlying genetic differences and not just socio-economic factors.
The genetic differences could be down to socio-economic factors though, such as some of your ancestors having been slaves and restricted in how they could choose a partner.
Not really. It works on the timescale that specific causes are affecting the genepool. Europeans with below average immune systems were removed from the gene pool virtually overnight by the black death. Native Americans famously never had the 'benefit' of this event.
Similarly, there was an enormous selective pressure on Black slaves in the Americas, so it's certainly possible some effects took only a generation to be reflected in the gene pool.
However, when it comes to intelligence, no strong evidence exists saying it is genetically predetermined. Culture and rolemodel of parents are far greater determinants, implying selective pressure is unlikely to affect the general intelligence of a subgroup.
Hungary has successfully created incentives to raise their birth rates for example. The Hungarian government doesn't want to rely on mass immigration to sustain the country's population it seems. You don't need imported diversity for more jobs - you can just create very "un-diverse" people yourselves, which will work those jobs once they've grown up.
If other Western nations like the US would seriously get behind an idea like this, with all the power of the media and various propaganda outlets, they, too, would quickly see a cultural shift towards rising birth rates. Unfortunately the people in control don't want this to happen.
Whether ever-continuing growth to chase the 0.3% higher GDP each year is desirable, is another topic though.
The thousands of Euros spent on lawyers and development time to become compliant, plus all the time wasted.
Really a great accomplishment by the EU... in addition to clicking a shitty "I accept cookies" banner on every damn website I visit, I now frequently also have to click another popup for GDPR and multiple checkboxes for GDPR when I signup somewhere. As if anyone ever bothered reading those.
As far as I'm concerned, it's all just a huge waste and the internet was better off before politicians got involved.
I bother reading those, and it's my fucking right to do so, as well as to stop using a service if I don't think it's worth the data they're taking as payment.
Arguing that I shouldn't have that right, because it bothers some people is like arguing against price tags because "they're annoying" and "Who looks at those before buying something anyway?".
And no, you don't click "I accept cookies", you click something along the lines of "I accept necessary cookies plus everything I've explicitly enabled", otherwise site is not GDPR compliant and you can just report them.
The GDPR pop up is NOT just a pop up (not if you are following the law). If you are a data controller and you believe that the GDPR is just a pointless pop up you should consult your lawyer and see what they say.
There are many European political dissidents here that had dozens of bank accounts canceled on them. Sometimes the only way to have a bank account after reaching a certain level of popularity is to bank in countries like Georgia, Bulgaria etc. where nobody has heard of you. Until they, too, cancel your account and you're unbanked again and unable to participate in a modern economy.
IMO the only way out of this kind of oppression is crypto, at least in the long term.