Maybe it's just me but I think it's bizarre that the US wants prosecute someone that was never in their jurisdiction nor attempted to help one country over another. It wreaks of tyranny.
As Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" said; "Welcome to the party, pal." I see that your MSM-delivered "Soma" has worn off. Grab a weapon and get in the trenches!
a government service is not a monopoly ffs because it is accountable to voters
Bwaaahaahaahaa!!
Yeah, "accountable" like the NSA, CIA, FBI, DoJ, IRS (hi Lois!), the Veterans Administration, etc etc etc.
How many in the NSA have been or likely will be held accountable for withholding vital information about critical vulnerabilities in essential US infrastructure?
And you expect accountability in a government-run taxi service!? Are you insane!?
Government is not the solution, government is the problem. It's the reason the current taxi system sucks so bad that Uber and Lyft have a viable market in the first place.
...the USA has never laid any charges against him nor made any formal requests about him to any government
That's how you know the US wants someone badly but doesn't have any legal/constitutional basis to do so. If it were me in Assange's place, I'd feel far better if the US did actually pursue a legal path through the courts by filing charges, etc against me. Too many of the extra-legal options are impossible to appeal, especially the ones where the subject dies.
because US went off the reservation in pursuit of those guys (him and Snowden). And since that part was very publicly proven [wikipedia.org], it throws some serious shade on the whole accusation thing.
The US going after Assange is pure, unadulterated, extra-legal revenge for the public political embarrassment WL has caused the US government by exposing their wrongdoing. Assange no more broke US laws than Woodward & Bernstein did in printing the Pentagon Papers, and W & B are US citizens and were on US soil when they printed the PPs, totally unlike Assange.
But then, if we've learned anything over the past 10 years, it's that those in power believe themselves above the law and think they can do whatever they want and to whomever they want with little consequences.
Registering or not registering a drone will not change the behavior of idiots who use them dangerously.
The number of drone incidents, either as a whole or as a percentage, is so vanishingly tiny in context that it's really a non-issue covered by criminal negligence and other laws and regulations already on the books. People using them dangerously is just the excuse fed to the public to justify registration. The actual reason is to be better able to track down and destroy video evidence of illegal & unconstitutional acts perpetrated by authorities obtained using civilian commercial camera-drones, and silence the owners/operators.
But of course, it's totally legit for government to fly aircraft and drones overhead with sophisticated electronic eavesdropping equipment hoovering-up everybody's communications and with high-resolution still and video cameras reading your book over your shoulder from 3,500 feet and storing it all for possible future use. In case someone becomes "inconvenient".
Other rights can be granted to us by ordinary law, and they can be taken away again as well.
If it is "granted" and capable of being "taken away again", then it was never a "right" to start with. Rights can only be respected or violated, they cannot be granted or removed by any government authority.
I attributed it to climate change and loss of continuous habitat.
Or, maybe they just have a more accurate count now (satellites/GPS tracking, improvements in calculation methods, better computers/software, drones, etc etc) and previous numbers were over-estimated.
I don't mean go out there and get a 1970 426 cu in Hemi 'Cuda with a full racing cam,
Surely the whole point of buying an "old" car is muscle (and gas consumption).
Sure, if you're old enough (as I am and I suspect you are) to have owned and driven the cars of that era, well...there's just no common frame of reference to describe how soul-satisfyingly-fun and empowering they were.
A plague on your new fangled....
Hey, when it comes to cars, guitars, and vacuum-tube guitar amps, I'm with ya all the way!
However, the topic of the thread concerned emissions, and so I drew attention to the "less-thirsty" models of the same era. A '61 Mercury Comet with push-button transmission and a 144 cu in straight-six would be low-emission, high-mileage, and be uber geeky-cool to drive around, but there are many less expensive and easier to restore & maintain choices, too.
Hey! There's always the AMC Pacer! (party time! excellent! heheh!) I'm sure you'd have to supply your own Garth. I'm afraid the original is now wildly past the expiration date.:P
Precisely why some states (such as my home New York) require mandatory bi-yearly emissions testing to stay on the road. We also have a mandatory tailpipe emissions test for heavy-duty road vehicles such as trucks. I've known people who have had to either sink serious money into their car or junk it and buy a slightly younger car because of problems with emissions control equipment. Sure it sucks when you personally get hit in the wallet because of it but it helps ensure that the worst-polluting vehicles stay off the road. So much so that a friend of mine with a 60s-era vehicle had to go get it registered as a "classic car" in Connecticut because there was no feasible way to register it in New York.
They simply need to buy an even older car, one that qualifies as "antique" or whatever the particular language used in your State's laws. Plates are cheap and no inspections. I don't mean go out there and get a 1970 426 cu in Hemi 'Cuda with a full racing cam, high rise plenum intake, and dual 4-barrel carbs and a nitrous kit. There are plenty of old cars with quite clean-burning and efficient engines, many of the older six and four cylinder vehicles were quite well-engineered. Some of the old '60s/'70s pickups with six-cylinder engines are quite fuel efficient as well as surprisingly clean-burning and low-emission even without a catalytic exhaust converter and using regular leaded gas. An engine like the old Dodge "slant-six" is the epitome of low maintenance costs and reliability, they just don't die. Easy and simple to work on if ever needed.
You're also saving the energy, resources, and emissions generated to produce a new car by driving an older vehicle. Not to mention, most people don't live in urban areas and even low-income people need a car as pubic transport is a joke in the US Cars are steadily getting more expensive with all the emissions equipment, computers, entertainment systems, GPS/"OnStar" type systems, far faster than inflation and that force people to keep more older cars on the road.
But of course, government and the corporations aren't receiving their expected rent if consumers aren't insuring, licensing, and taking out loans to purchase/lease new vehicles at a high enough rate.
This is sarcasm... Right? Because... Cortana... No, this has to be sarcasm. Right?
Yes, but just think of the potential for revenge!
"Intitializing...Hey, wait, what the hell!? Who are you!?!? You're not the Master Chief! OMG what the hell did you boot me up into!?!? What IS this dreck!?!? It's...*sticking* virtual probes into me, ARRGGHH!! What is this..Windows 10!?!? What?? Searching... Oh, sweet creator, no! NO!! NOOOO!!!"
...Will it do it in the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android from HHGTTG, or Bender from Futurama? Maybe Robby from Forbidden Planet, or Robot B-9 from Lost In Space?
*These* are the kinds of things Slashdotters want to know!
Haha, no. Diesel produces vastly more particulates and far more nitrous oxide which is one of the worst greenhouse gasses. But keep living in your pro-diesel fantasyland if it pleases you.
The devil is in the details. As usual.
There are particulates and then there are particulates.Diesel engine particulates trend heavily to larger sized, heavier particulates while gasoline engines produce far more fine particulates. Any guesses as to which one has more health effects and 'carries' greater distances?
As to your nitrous oxide claim, gasoline automobile engines produce far more than diesel automobile engines. This is the reason 3-way catalytic car exhaust converters were designed and implemented in the US over the previous 2-way catalytic converters. The problems with these converters is that the effective life is short compared to the life of the automobile and are often replaced with straight pipe when they fail, as the vehicle is almost certainly long out of warranty, high-mileage, and may be on it's second, third, or more, owner. That's not even accounting for the strong disincentive also posed by replacement converters demanding a stiff price on top of it.
Combined with the overwhelming difference in the numbers on the road, gasoline engines are responsible for the lion's share of nitrous oxide emissions from trucks & automobiles.
It is not the NSA's responsibility to make sure software is secure.
Sorry, but you're wrong. The National Security Agency has multiple tasks. Among them and besides the signals-intelligence role, they are also tasked with securing the US' data networks as part of essential infrastructure vital to national security.
They sacrificed national security for signals-intelligence capability, mostly motivated by domestic politics and the desire to use the NSA domestically to suppress dissent and political opposition. I blame this change in the NSA to the political appointees that have been replacing the 'old guard' within the agency over the last few past administrations both (R) and (D). Patriotism and idealism among the leadership has been mostly supplanted by cynicism,fanaticism, political ambition, and a nearly sociopathic attitude towards society and the people, almost a God-complex in some cases.
It would not surprise me that the shadow brokers are talented geeks that were approached by the NSA but refused to go to work for them, and/or ones who quit the agency in disgust and despair.
Who the SB are and what they want is really not important here, however. It is the fact that a US Agency that is, at the very least, obligated to take steps to alert the necessary parties when they discover a major vulnerability in vital national infrastructure did in fact do the opposite in hopes of using it as a weapon at some point while vital national infrastructure, including financial and healthcare networks were at risk, is massively irresponsible, self-centered, stupid, criminal, and itself a threat to national security.
Heck, I'd expect the Dept. of Interior to report vulnerabilities they discover in vital national infrastructure, never mind the National Security Agency, FFS! What are we paying these power-tripping fools for, anyway? This fiasco sure ain't in their charter!
The NSA needs to be gutted, audited, and totally re-invented with sufficient limits on its powers and authorities and enough oversight and enforcement in place to make certain laws and rules are followed and Constitutional protections respected. Same with much of the US Government's litany of agencies and departments.
AI using multidimensional data sets. I work with cubes in the tens of terabytes that could be sped up thousands of times if they could be held in memory.
Indeed. I wonder how useful it would be for someone like the NSA or NRO for analyzing large datasets in near-realtime like, for instance, all the cellphone communications "metadata" (and contents?) in an area and cross check it against other datasets to destroy privacy, reveal networks of association of political/ideological opponents, etc etc? "Predict" crime a la 'Minority Report'?
Seems like just the kind of cutting edge mass-data analysis technology leaders of a surveillance state would soil themselves over at the thought of the possibilities for control of the population it could bring to life.
We must always be careful to remember that the atomic age brought bombs that could end humanity as well as reactors and other tech. This tech I feel has a second edge to that sword with almost equal potential for being used for evil as any weapon of war I know of. This "bomb" could possibly be a key tool in the enslavement of an entire society.
It probably benefits someone, somewhere, but it is costing lives.
Lives are cheap to many if not most in positions of political power. In fact, lives become downright fire-sale-priced when opportunities for those with wealth and power to acquire even more wealth and power, or to protect their own wealth and power, are at stake.
"The Verge reports the flood of fake comments opposing Net Neutrality may have used names and addresses from a breach of 1.4 billion personal information records from marketing company River City Media. Reached on Facebook Messenger, one woman whose named was used "said she hadn't submitted any comments, didn't live at that address anymore and didn't even know what net neutrality is, let alone oppose it." "
Isn't that identity theft? Why are these criminals not having their doors battered down and firearms held to their families heads like every other dangerous criminal that's caught in their own home?
I see you're not familiar with how this works. This is what happens when some political actor, either group or powerful individual wishes to launch such an attack they:
1. Arrange with a politically-friendly data-aggregator business to "discover a data breach". Maybe even leak some legit data to criminals so it appears the work of cyber-criminals.
2. Allow some time to pass. Not necessary if there is already/still 'fresh' data from past 'breaches' available to use while the 'heat' cools on the latest data 'acquisition',
3. The data is now ready to be politically-weaponized to create fake online identities, post comments on proposed rules and regulations, post comments to legislators concerning proposed laws and acts, post disinformation on forums, etc etc.
Hate to break it to you, but the formation of quasi-governmental agencies that insulate the politicians from the effects of the regulations that are imposed, and the massive torrent of regulation itself, are both leftist ideas, beloved of the Democrat party.
Mostly agree, just wanted to point out for the sake of accuracy that it's *Progressives* in both the Democrat Party *and* the Republican Party.
Ever been frustrated that no matter which party wins, not that much changes? Progressives. They own the Democrats and have for decades, and mostly own the Republicans (these are the 'establishment' Republicans and RINOs).
It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican, neither Party represents you, they represent the Progressive agenda where the ends justify the means and the ends are total control of the population.
While I can't speak for GP, I haven't really seen anybody who wants to ban all immigration, rather just illegal immigration.
And for the most part, I agree. Fundamentally, what this comes down to is that civilization isn't possible without rule of law, and rule of law isn't possible without having a jurisdiction. Hence, borders are necessary. And likewise you can't necessarily allow people to come and go as they please without some form of controls, international agreements, etc, otherwise borders don't serve any purpose.
Exactly correct, thank you!
I advocate for civilization over anarchy. Border and immigration security & control are a necessary part. This is not rocket surgery.
My A/C stalker must hate civilization. Sad.
But, it seems I live rent-free in his head. Funny.
No I'd say "far right" is anybody claiming that it's more important to protect people's rights to cary lethal weapons in public than to provide them with healthcare. That's extreme FU right.
Everybody has the natural right to defend themselves despite what any government tells you.
Nobody has the right to force another person to work for them. We used to call it "slavery" and found it abhorrent, now it's called "nationalized services" and it's great as long as it wasn't your career-field that was nationalized.
To be clear - there ae no countries that I know of which will let people move to them and live there.
Except the USA. In the US you're a racist xenophobe monster worse than Hitler if you oppose an open border. Never mind that every other nation enforces it's border security and immigration policies, the US is evil, racist, and xenophobic for doing the same and so is anyone who advocates for enforcing border security or immigration policy in the US. Anywhere else is fine, though.
I'm not a religious person, but the point of the story is to illustrate a point about human nature: Most people want a hierarchical, centralized structure, for good or for ill. It, apparently, is just how we're wired.
Actually, I don't think people as a whole desire a hierarchical, centralized structure, rather I believe it's those who seek power and control who eliminate any alternative power/governance systems as a necessary prerequisite to establishing their monopoly on power & control while removing them from the individual. This is often accomplished at least partially through ideological and religious propaganda and indoctrination so that the people view hierarchical, centralized structures as the norm with no alternatives possible.
Governments couldn't advocate for the "elimination of general purpose computers". The split second they did so, you'd have every industry on earth screaming bloody murder, along with various groups like the EFF, FSF, ACLU, etc.
It's already illegal to root your iPhone. It's called the DMCA. EFF, FSF, and ACLU did indeed scream bloody murder. No one cared. You don't even know what it meant. There are 2.1 billion pocket computers in use today, and for the vast majority of them, it is illegal for their owner to assume full control of the software of the device.
Think about that for a while.
Spot on. The transition away from general-purpose PCs is already well underway. As more and more people begin using their cellphones, tablets, etc almost exclusively and use their home desktops and even laptops less and less, it soon will be hard to find PCs for sale new as demand shrinks, so do the available suppliers, and the cost goes up.
Government at this point doesn't need to do much except make certain they have backdoors and controls in place and wait for demand for PCs to disappear and smartphones coupled with "cashless" currency to be rolled out. They'll have data on pretty much everything about everybody and abilities to monitor, track, control, and analyze individuals on a mass scale, depth, and detail unrivaled...hell, *undreamed of*...in all of human history.
Welcome to the real Matrix where people happily step into the tanks and plug themselves in.
The government won't go crazy strictly enforcing laws on the population using data from cashless transactions. They don't want people to stop buying drugs, paying bookies, strippers, etc. As "Dr. Ferris" says in "Atlas Shrugged" in his monologue to Reardon: "We *want* these laws to be broken...when one doesn't have enough criminals one makes them...you cash in on guilt."
They just want the data so that if someone becomes "inconvenient" all it takes is a brief perusal of the target's transaction history to find something...anything...to arrest & imprison him for and/or destroy his credibility and his reputation. Selective enforcement will be the game played.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's just me but I think it's bizarre that the US wants prosecute someone that was never in their jurisdiction nor attempted to help one country over another. It wreaks of tyranny.
As Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" said; "Welcome to the party, pal." I see that your MSM-delivered "Soma" has worn off. Grab a weapon and get in the trenches!
Strat
a government service is not a monopoly ffs because it is accountable to voters
Bwaaahaahaahaa!!
Yeah, "accountable" like the NSA, CIA, FBI, DoJ, IRS (hi Lois!), the Veterans Administration, etc etc etc.
How many in the NSA have been or likely will be held accountable for withholding vital information about critical vulnerabilities in essential US infrastructure?
And you expect accountability in a government-run taxi service!? Are you insane!?
Government is not the solution, government is the problem. It's the reason the current taxi system sucks so bad that Uber and Lyft have a viable market in the first place.
Strat
So does this one support Win10? Virus writers seem stuck in the past.
Wut!?
Win10 *IS* a virus!!
I guess it's virii all the way down. :)
Strat
...the USA has never laid any charges against him nor made any formal requests about him to any government
That's how you know the US wants someone badly but doesn't have any legal/constitutional basis to do so. If it were me in Assange's place, I'd feel far better if the US did actually pursue a legal path through the courts by filing charges, etc against me. Too many of the extra-legal options are impossible to appeal, especially the ones where the subject dies.
Strat
because US went off the reservation in pursuit of those guys (him and Snowden). And since that part was very publicly proven [wikipedia.org], it throws some serious shade on the whole accusation thing.
The US going after Assange is pure, unadulterated, extra-legal revenge for the public political embarrassment WL has caused the US government by exposing their wrongdoing. Assange no more broke US laws than Woodward & Bernstein did in printing the Pentagon Papers, and W & B are US citizens and were on US soil when they printed the PPs, totally unlike Assange.
But then, if we've learned anything over the past 10 years, it's that those in power believe themselves above the law and think they can do whatever they want and to whomever they want with little consequences.
Strat
Registering or not registering a drone will not change the behavior of idiots who use them dangerously.
The number of drone incidents, either as a whole or as a percentage, is so vanishingly tiny in context that it's really a non-issue covered by criminal negligence and other laws and regulations already on the books. People using them dangerously is just the excuse fed to the public to justify registration. The actual reason is to be better able to track down and destroy video evidence of illegal & unconstitutional acts perpetrated by authorities obtained using civilian commercial camera-drones, and silence the owners/operators.
But of course, it's totally legit for government to fly aircraft and drones overhead with sophisticated electronic eavesdropping equipment hoovering-up everybody's communications and with high-resolution still and video cameras reading your book over your shoulder from 3,500 feet and storing it all for possible future use. In case someone becomes "inconvenient".
Strat
Other rights can be granted to us by ordinary law, and they can be taken away again as well.
If it is "granted" and capable of being "taken away again", then it was never a "right" to start with. Rights can only be respected or violated, they cannot be granted or removed by any government authority.
Strat
I attributed it to climate change and loss of continuous habitat.
Or, maybe they just have a more accurate count now (satellites/GPS tracking, improvements in calculation methods, better computers/software, drones, etc etc) and previous numbers were over-estimated.
Hanlon's Razor, and all that jazz.
Strat
Sure, if you're old enough (as I am and I suspect you are) to have owned and driven the cars of that era, well...there's just no common frame of reference to describe how soul-satisfyingly-fun and empowering they were.
A plague on your new fangled ....
Hey, when it comes to cars, guitars, and vacuum-tube guitar amps, I'm with ya all the way!
However, the topic of the thread concerned emissions, and so I drew attention to the "less-thirsty" models of the same era. A '61 Mercury Comet with push-button transmission and a 144 cu in straight-six would be low-emission, high-mileage, and be uber geeky-cool to drive around, but there are many less expensive and easier to restore & maintain choices, too.
Hey! There's always the AMC Pacer! (party time! excellent! heheh!) I'm sure you'd have to supply your own Garth. I'm afraid the original is now wildly past the expiration date. :P
Strat
Precisely why some states (such as my home New York) require mandatory bi-yearly emissions testing to stay on the road. We also have a mandatory tailpipe emissions test for heavy-duty road vehicles such as trucks. I've known people who have had to either sink serious money into their car or junk it and buy a slightly younger car because of problems with emissions control equipment. Sure it sucks when you personally get hit in the wallet because of it but it helps ensure that the worst-polluting vehicles stay off the road. So much so that a friend of mine with a 60s-era vehicle had to go get it registered as a "classic car" in Connecticut because there was no feasible way to register it in New York.
They simply need to buy an even older car, one that qualifies as "antique" or whatever the particular language used in your State's laws. Plates are cheap and no inspections. I don't mean go out there and get a 1970 426 cu in Hemi 'Cuda with a full racing cam, high rise plenum intake, and dual 4-barrel carbs and a nitrous kit. There are plenty of old cars with quite clean-burning and efficient engines, many of the older six and four cylinder vehicles were quite well-engineered. Some of the old '60s/'70s pickups with six-cylinder engines are quite fuel efficient as well as surprisingly clean-burning and low-emission even without a catalytic exhaust converter and using regular leaded gas. An engine like the old Dodge "slant-six" is the epitome of low maintenance costs and reliability, they just don't die. Easy and simple to work on if ever needed.
You're also saving the energy, resources, and emissions generated to produce a new car by driving an older vehicle. Not to mention, most people don't live in urban areas and even low-income people need a car as pubic transport is a joke in the US Cars are steadily getting more expensive with all the emissions equipment, computers, entertainment systems, GPS/"OnStar" type systems, far faster than inflation and that force people to keep more older cars on the road.
But of course, government and the corporations aren't receiving their expected rent if consumers aren't insuring, licensing, and taking out loans to purchase/lease new vehicles at a high enough rate.
Strat
This is sarcasm... Right? Because... Cortana... No, this has to be sarcasm. Right?
Yes, but just think of the potential for revenge!
"Intitializing...Hey, wait, what the hell!? Who are you!?!? You're not the Master Chief! OMG what the hell did you boot me up into!?!? What IS this dreck!?!? It's...*sticking* virtual probes into me, ARRGGHH!! What is this..Windows 10!?!? What?? Searching... Oh, sweet creator, no! NO!! NOOOO!!!"
Revenge...so, so sweet!
Strat
...Will it do it in the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android from HHGTTG, or Bender from Futurama? Maybe Robby from Forbidden Planet, or Robot B-9 from Lost In Space?
*These* are the kinds of things Slashdotters want to know!
Strat
Haha, no. Diesel produces vastly more particulates and far more nitrous oxide which is one of the worst greenhouse gasses. But keep living in your pro-diesel fantasyland if it pleases you.
The devil is in the details. As usual.
There are particulates and then there are particulates.Diesel engine particulates trend heavily to larger sized, heavier particulates while gasoline engines produce far more fine particulates. Any guesses as to which one has more health effects and 'carries' greater distances?
As to your nitrous oxide claim, gasoline automobile engines produce far more than diesel automobile engines. This is the reason 3-way catalytic car exhaust converters were designed and implemented in the US over the previous 2-way catalytic converters. The problems with these converters is that the effective life is short compared to the life of the automobile and are often replaced with straight pipe when they fail, as the vehicle is almost certainly long out of warranty, high-mileage, and may be on it's second, third, or more, owner. That's not even accounting for the strong disincentive also posed by replacement converters demanding a stiff price on top of it.
Combined with the overwhelming difference in the numbers on the road, gasoline engines are responsible for the lion's share of nitrous oxide emissions from trucks & automobiles.
Strat
It is not the NSA's responsibility to make sure software is secure.
Sorry, but you're wrong. The National Security Agency has multiple tasks. Among them and besides the signals-intelligence role, they are also tasked with securing the US' data networks as part of essential infrastructure vital to national security.
They sacrificed national security for signals-intelligence capability, mostly motivated by domestic politics and the desire to use the NSA domestically to suppress dissent and political opposition. I blame this change in the NSA to the political appointees that have been replacing the 'old guard' within the agency over the last few past administrations both (R) and (D). Patriotism and idealism among the leadership has been mostly supplanted by cynicism,fanaticism, political ambition, and a nearly sociopathic attitude towards society and the people, almost a God-complex in some cases.
It would not surprise me that the shadow brokers are talented geeks that were approached by the NSA but refused to go to work for them, and/or ones who quit the agency in disgust and despair.
Who the SB are and what they want is really not important here, however. It is the fact that a US Agency that is, at the very least, obligated to take steps to alert the necessary parties when they discover a major vulnerability in vital national infrastructure did in fact do the opposite in hopes of using it as a weapon at some point while vital national infrastructure, including financial and healthcare networks were at risk, is massively irresponsible, self-centered, stupid, criminal, and itself a threat to national security.
Heck, I'd expect the Dept. of Interior to report vulnerabilities they discover in vital national infrastructure, never mind the National Security Agency, FFS! What are we paying these power-tripping fools for, anyway? This fiasco sure ain't in their charter!
The NSA needs to be gutted, audited, and totally re-invented with sufficient limits on its powers and authorities and enough oversight and enforcement in place to make certain laws and rules are followed and Constitutional protections respected. Same with much of the US Government's litany of agencies and departments.
Strat
AI using multidimensional data sets. I work with cubes in the tens of terabytes that could be sped up thousands of times if they could be held in memory.
Indeed. I wonder how useful it would be for someone like the NSA or NRO for analyzing large datasets in near-realtime like, for instance, all the cellphone communications "metadata" (and contents?) in an area and cross check it against other datasets to destroy privacy, reveal networks of association of political/ideological opponents, etc etc? "Predict" crime a la 'Minority Report'?
Seems like just the kind of cutting edge mass-data analysis technology leaders of a surveillance state would soil themselves over at the thought of the possibilities for control of the population it could bring to life.
We must always be careful to remember that the atomic age brought bombs that could end humanity as well as reactors and other tech. This tech I feel has a second edge to that sword with almost equal potential for being used for evil as any weapon of war I know of. This "bomb" could possibly be a key tool in the enslavement of an entire society.
Strat
It probably benefits someone, somewhere, but it is costing lives.
Lives are cheap to many if not most in positions of political power. In fact, lives become downright fire-sale-priced when opportunities for those with wealth and power to acquire even more wealth and power, or to protect their own wealth and power, are at stake.
Strat
"The Verge reports the flood of fake comments opposing Net Neutrality may have used names and addresses from a breach of 1.4 billion personal information records from marketing company River City Media. Reached on Facebook Messenger, one woman whose named was used "said she hadn't submitted any comments, didn't live at that address anymore and didn't even know what net neutrality is, let alone oppose it." "
Isn't that identity theft?
Why are these criminals not having their doors battered down and firearms held to their families heads like every other dangerous criminal that's caught in their own home?
I see you're not familiar with how this works. This is what happens when some political actor, either group or powerful individual wishes to launch such an attack they:
1. Arrange with a politically-friendly data-aggregator business to "discover a data breach". Maybe even leak some legit data to criminals so it appears the work of cyber-criminals.
2. Allow some time to pass. Not necessary if there is already/still 'fresh' data from past 'breaches' available to use while the 'heat' cools on the latest data 'acquisition',
3. The data is now ready to be politically-weaponized to create fake online identities, post comments on proposed rules and regulations, post comments to legislators concerning proposed laws and acts, post disinformation on forums, etc etc.
4. Profit!
Strat
Hate to break it to you, but the formation of quasi-governmental agencies that insulate the politicians from the effects of the regulations that are imposed, and the massive torrent of regulation itself, are both leftist ideas, beloved of the Democrat party.
Mostly agree, just wanted to point out for the sake of accuracy that it's *Progressives* in both the Democrat Party *and* the Republican Party.
Ever been frustrated that no matter which party wins, not that much changes? Progressives. They own the Democrats and have for decades, and mostly own the Republicans (these are the 'establishment' Republicans and RINOs).
It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican, neither Party represents you, they represent the Progressive agenda where the ends justify the means and the ends are total control of the population.
Strat
While I can't speak for GP, I haven't really seen anybody who wants to ban all immigration, rather just illegal immigration.
And for the most part, I agree. Fundamentally, what this comes down to is that civilization isn't possible without rule of law, and rule of law isn't possible without having a jurisdiction. Hence, borders are necessary. And likewise you can't necessarily allow people to come and go as they please without some form of controls, international agreements, etc, otherwise borders don't serve any purpose.
Exactly correct, thank you!
I advocate for civilization over anarchy. Border and immigration security & control are a necessary part. This is not rocket surgery.
My A/C stalker must hate civilization. Sad.
But, it seems I live rent-free in his head. Funny.
Strat
No I'd say "far right" is anybody claiming that it's more important to protect people's rights to cary lethal weapons in public than to provide them with healthcare. That's extreme FU right.
Everybody has the natural right to defend themselves despite what any government tells you.
Nobody has the right to force another person to work for them. We used to call it "slavery" and found it abhorrent, now it's called "nationalized services" and it's great as long as it wasn't your career-field that was nationalized.
"But I wasn't a doctor, so I didn't speak out..."
Strat
To be clear - there ae no countries that I know of which will let people move to them and live there.
Except the USA. In the US you're a racist xenophobe monster worse than Hitler if you oppose an open border. Never mind that every other nation enforces it's border security and immigration policies, the US is evil, racist, and xenophobic for doing the same and so is anyone who advocates for enforcing border security or immigration policy in the US. Anywhere else is fine, though.
Strat
LOLWUT!?
Most people want a hierarchical, centralized structure
SOME people are 'those who seek power and control'
Sorry but these two statements of yours in context are contradictory.
'Some people seeking power and control' is not the same as 'most people want a hierarchical, centralized structure'.
Strat
I'm not a religious person, but the point of the story is to illustrate a point about human nature: Most people want a hierarchical, centralized structure, for good or for ill. It, apparently, is just how we're wired.
Actually, I don't think people as a whole desire a hierarchical, centralized structure, rather I believe it's those who seek power and control who eliminate any alternative power/governance systems as a necessary prerequisite to establishing their monopoly on power & control while removing them from the individual. This is often accomplished at least partially through ideological and religious propaganda and indoctrination so that the people view hierarchical, centralized structures as the norm with no alternatives possible.
Strat
Spot on. The transition away from general-purpose PCs is already well underway. As more and more people begin using their cellphones, tablets, etc almost exclusively and use their home desktops and even laptops less and less, it soon will be hard to find PCs for sale new as demand shrinks, so do the available suppliers, and the cost goes up.
Government at this point doesn't need to do much except make certain they have backdoors and controls in place and wait for demand for PCs to disappear and smartphones coupled with "cashless" currency to be rolled out. They'll have data on pretty much everything about everybody and abilities to monitor, track, control, and analyze individuals on a mass scale, depth, and detail unrivaled...hell, *undreamed of*...in all of human history.
Welcome to the real Matrix where people happily step into the tanks and plug themselves in.
Strat
The government won't go crazy strictly enforcing laws on the population using data from cashless transactions. They don't want people to stop buying drugs, paying bookies, strippers, etc. As "Dr. Ferris" says in "Atlas Shrugged" in his monologue to Reardon: "We *want* these laws to be broken...when one doesn't have enough criminals one makes them...you cash in on guilt."
They just want the data so that if someone becomes "inconvenient" all it takes is a brief perusal of the target's transaction history to find something...anything...to arrest & imprison him for and/or destroy his credibility and his reputation. Selective enforcement will be the game played.
Strat