Statement on EU-US Cooperation on Turning Public Opinion Against Encryption
Interesting how our leaders see their role not as representing our interests, but in shaping our interests. There exists an entire subject in political science dealing with how to increase compliance with the schemes of regulators (see Nudge Theory).<p>The mistake they make is a classic short-run vs. long-run miscalculation. In the short-run, you can get away with these kinds of tactics to increase compliance. For example, running talking points on the MSM works well. They run the talking points and in the next days, everyone is parroting what they heard on the news, as if it's their own views.<p>But in the long-run, people will become more familiar with these tactics, such that they will become less effective (e.g. waning trust in the media). They are burning through the cultural & social capital which sustain these institutions (like the MSM or academia), and don't realize that once it runs out, they will no longer have these levers and buttons at their disposal.<p>At that point, the only way to increase compliance is with force. And once you go down that road, it becomes extremely clear to those wielding that force, just how precarious their situation is (e.g. Maduro assassination attempts). That is how totalitarianism takes root, fear of the people.