Well I can't speak for the original commenter but, driving is orders of magnitude more dangerous than the threats that seem to require so much surveillance; yet huge swaths of the population engage in it on a daily basis, with barely a second thought.
Personally, I think that is extremely relevant to exactly where these concerns deserve to be placed. How do you justify all the tracking and surveillance to deal with a risk to people that is, by any rational measure, far less of a risk than things they actively choose to do on a daily basis?
Are you familiar with ECT? Because I can't really see it being used voluntarily outside of some pretty extreme cases. It isn't exactly like the doctor pushes a button and you just forget....we are talking about inuction of massive seizures from an external electrical source.
I think there is a very simple way of telling if an event is so traunmatic that it warrants this sort of treatment: If undergoing the therapy sounds preferable to continuing as you are; even after considering the chances that it doesn't work.... then its likely traumatic enough.
It is amusing to consider it a summary since it is a direct quote from the source material that the book was referencing:) Means the same either way of course.
Someone once said to that while people complain about the salaries of politicians, some of the states with the most blatant corruption are the ones that don't pay their politicians much....so they have to be wealthy or in some pockets; nobody else can take the job.
So what little reward? Clearly they are not looking tor people with much conscience. Conscience is a luxury of those who can afford it.
actually 1984 and Brave new world are both amongst some of my favourite books of all time.
The thing I find interesting is to think about what Orwell would include today. I mean, he had no way to know that it would be possible for so few to do so much. Even his view screens that could not be turned off and acted as cameras.... envisioned a world where nobody knew if they were watching when. He never considered a world where that act doesn't require an active observer, a world where they can just always be recording and then go back and watch later. Such technology was too far out to even be a pipe dream.
Hell, 15 years ago people in the know talked about it like it was a pipe dream. I mean sure, we could envision it then, but, the data requirements for both movement and storage were impossible, only maybe as an outside chance, in the hands of a sophisticated group like the NSA, and even then likely more than they can handle.... and now....today.... we know its true.
Hell I remember people talking about TCP hijacking and types of MITM attacks that always ended with "yah maybe if you were the NSA and could be snooping on every backbone connection".... 15 years ago, that was fiction; but it had become imaginable.
I have to wonder what 1984 would include if it had been written in the 90s.
Just as bad as the "GOP haters" here who criticize them for surveillance, then turn a blind eye when the dems do it. Remember Khrushchev: "Politicians are the same all over, they promise to build a bridge, even where there is no river" (only time politicians tell the truth is when criticizing politicians)
> while engaging in the statistically most dangerous everyday activity in the Western world
Except Kurgerands are not pure gold coins, they are coins with an oz of gold in them, but that gold is alloyed to make it less soft and more worthy of use in circulation (as $1000+ coins jingle around in many pockets)
I would think this gives you some more leeway when it comes to its properties, at least enough to fool many buyers.
I seem to remember reading claims that a large number of guns used in robberies are actually not even loaded; and thus are little more than props. Without bullets it is no more of a weapon than a rock (which is still a formidable weapon... quite an expensive, precision crafted rock)
Funny you would say that, I started brewing mead recently and had a similar thought about the "liquid gold".... a bottle of alcohol may in fact be worth more; longer than gold. Maybe its time to make a portion of my basement the "Wine cellar".
course after reading that article about old wines, and how any really old wine is going to have the taste of asparagus in it (due to how it ages chemically)...and I can't imagine why anyone would ever want such things foul liquids....much less to pay more for the privileges of experiencing them.....
Never heard of anyone using linseed oil in their crank case.
Normally improper disposal of motor oil may make a fire situation worst, but doesn't, as far as I know, tend to cause them. Whereas, improper disposal of rags soaked in linseed oil (normally used in paints) has been the primary cause of a few fires.
> I have to admit, it was ingenious. They seemed to put as much effort into the decryption/restoration > part of the virus as they did the infection/encryption. I suppose this is because if it was known that > even if you paid there was a good chance you wouldn't get your data back then you wouldn't pay - > but still - i was impressed.
If you think about it, the story where they hit the police, who paid, and got their files back is amazing advertising for them. There is now a high profile, widely circulated story which shows positively: they actually do what they promise to do. I bet that has seriously helped them get paid.
I mean sure, in a normal "service" they could have just done that one right and screwed everyone else, but, as an "IT Service" (lol) doing it right once means they can do it right over and over, so why not?
If you are going to be the gang that everybody hates, and wants to see go away, you may as well be the gang everybody hates and wishes would go away, but is known for at least honoring your extortion contracts. Nobody wants to pay you, if they think they are scewed either way, why would they?
At least if they hate you but know they really are getting what they pay for.... its not like it costs that much more to do right.
> No, UN resolutions aren't binding. But they are a reflection of what governments around the world > believe they should be seen supporting.
As opposed, of course, to what they believe they should actually support:)
Kind of like the Yemeni and other officials who work behind the scenes with American intelligence while running for office under the banner of hating America?
> Unless you think that all voting is fixed, we vote these people into office
That's a nice excuse. Actually I consider the form of it so broken as to basically amount to being fixed. In any case, voting, while requisit for what i would call a fair and legitimate system is not sufficient. Powers must be very strictly limited, and its clear that the current in place attempts at finding such limits have utterly failed.
Time to start over.
> Anarchy is never a solution to regulation where society is involved.
Never? Maybe maybe not. Sure sounds better than the violent thuggery we have now.
This is very true, but, that is kind of the point of a hedge isn't it? Yes its possible for many things to happen but, the more ways you have to catch yourself when you need it, more likely that one of them still holds.
Yup, and if things are that bad that I am trading gold for bread, what would I be doing without even the gold? Trading fists for bread? One thing I can guarantee is that, if that day comes, I wont magically be 20 again.
You are likely right, but, I don't see how the few regulations which have positive effects justify keeping the mass murderer alive because he regularly helps old ladies across the road. A new version of the FDA can be created after the criminals in power have been hanged for their prodigious crimes.
His point about lack of regulation allowing disgusting markets is valid. However, I suggest tolerance for this is partially the result of bad regulation creating disgusting markets of its own.
The inability to regulate is what drew me to bitcoin originally, its why I said "Aha! This is great" and what made me want to support it, even if it might be doomed to fail (I am not convinced one way or the other actually, which infuriates some people who have less btc than me who hang on every swing while I shrug it off.... making money was never why I was interested in btc)
Thing is, for all this talk of regulation being good, its also done absolutely terrible things. Terrible things, which drive people like myself to say "good, fuck the regulator scum". Their regulations created the gang problems in this country with their monumentally stupid drug war. Tally the body count on that boondoggle and then complain to me about assasination markets that have never verifiably produced a body.
All the while "regulation" has created the most perverse markets ever, driving safer drugs off the street, and making the worst abuses the most profitable.
Regulators can't be trusted and are typically blind to the destruction they leave in their wake. If bitcoin should die, I, for one, will support the next cryptocurrency that makes regulation hard or impossible. Its what the track record of regulators deserve.
I have only bought a tiny amount of gold and silver myself, but this was always the view I took of it. It isn't that I expect it to become a common currency again; or that I expect to get rich off it, but its a little fall back that will always be worth something in a worst case, or maybe something that can be used as collateral for a loan in a pinch. A small hedge against other calamities...and if I never use it and it just gets passed on to family, then I imagine I will have lead a comfortable enough life.
So if the price cuts in half or more, even if it drops down to the $300/oz of my teenage years, Hopefully it does that while other things (like pay or retirement accounts) rise; if not; at least it may take less of a fall than other things. Getting $300 for a coin you paid $1200 or more for is a loss.... but compare that to stocks you paid $100 for and are now worth nothing at all, or just pennies.... and which bet turned out better?
Maybe gold isn't a money maker, but, its not a bad diversification or hedge bet against even bigger losses.
Slashdot Mirror
Well I can't speak for the original commenter but, driving is orders of magnitude more dangerous than the threats that seem to require so much surveillance; yet huge swaths of the population engage in it on a daily basis, with barely a second thought.
Personally, I think that is extremely relevant to exactly where these concerns deserve to be placed. How do you justify all the tracking and surveillance to deal with a risk to people that is, by any rational measure, far less of a risk than things they actively choose to do on a daily basis?
Chief of Security Wolf vows his pack will personally guard the Hen house
Private prison owners: "The country needs stiffer drug penalties"
FBI: We need surveillance to help keep you safe from the people we keep radicalising and arming!
Are you familiar with ECT? Because I can't really see it being used voluntarily outside of some pretty extreme cases. It isn't exactly like the doctor pushes a button and you just forget....we are talking about inuction of massive seizures from an external electrical source.
I think there is a very simple way of telling if an event is so traunmatic that it warrants this sort of treatment: If undergoing the therapy sounds preferable to continuing as you are; even after considering the chances that it doesn't work.... then its likely traumatic enough.
I am glad somebody got it.
It is amusing to consider it a summary since it is a direct quote from the source material that the book was referencing :) Means the same either way of course.
Its only random if you aren't finding coincidences everywhere :)
their Allies must be other nation states? I figured they meant crony industrialists.
There are no coincidences:
"I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look."
- Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst
Please, I think you mean Rufus.
Someone once said to that while people complain about the salaries of politicians, some of the states with the most blatant corruption are the ones that don't pay their politicians much....so they have to be wealthy or in some pockets; nobody else can take the job.
So what little reward? Clearly they are not looking tor people with much conscience. Conscience is a luxury of those who can afford it.
actually 1984 and Brave new world are both amongst some of my favourite books of all time.
The thing I find interesting is to think about what Orwell would include today. I mean, he had no way to know that it would be possible for so few to do so much. Even his view screens that could not be turned off and acted as cameras.... envisioned a world where nobody knew if they were watching when. He never considered a world where that act doesn't require an active observer, a world where they can just always be recording and then go back and watch later. Such technology was too far out to even be a pipe dream.
Hell, 15 years ago people in the know talked about it like it was a pipe dream. I mean sure, we could envision it then, but, the data requirements for both movement and storage were impossible, only maybe as an outside chance, in the hands of a sophisticated group like the NSA, and even then likely more than they can handle.... and now....today.... we know its true.
Hell I remember people talking about TCP hijacking and types of MITM attacks that always ended with "yah maybe if you were the NSA and could be snooping on every backbone connection".... 15 years ago, that was fiction; but it had become imaginable.
I have to wonder what 1984 would include if it had been written in the 90s.
So after one or two generations of kids are born on moon colonies, do we get to call them mooninites or moonies?
> Tories bad, therefore Labour good, right?
Just as bad as the "GOP haters" here who criticize them for surveillance, then turn a blind eye when the dems do it. Remember Khrushchev: "Politicians are the same all over, they promise to build a bridge, even where there is no river" (only time politicians tell the truth is when criticizing politicians)
> while engaging in the statistically most dangerous everyday activity in the Western world
driving.
Except Kurgerands are not pure gold coins, they are coins with an oz of gold in them, but that gold is alloyed to make it less soft and more worthy of use in circulation (as $1000+ coins jingle around in many pockets)
I would think this gives you some more leeway when it comes to its properties, at least enough to fool many buyers.
I could have sworn it wasn't meant to be taken as an instruction manual. Possibly the worst mistake since that whole fiasco about serving man.
Which, coincidently is the movie reference that pops into my head whenever I see a cop car with "to protect and serve"
I seem to remember reading claims that a large number of guns used in robberies are actually not even loaded; and thus are little more than props. Without bullets it is no more of a weapon than a rock (which is still a formidable weapon... quite an expensive, precision crafted rock)
Funny you would say that, I started brewing mead recently and had a similar thought about the "liquid gold".... a bottle of alcohol may in fact be worth more; longer than gold. Maybe its time to make a portion of my basement the "Wine cellar".
course after reading that article about old wines, and how any really old wine is going to have the taste of asparagus in it (due to how it ages chemically)...and I can't imagine why anyone would ever want such things foul liquids....much less to pay more for the privileges of experiencing them.....
Seems liquor may be the better choice.
Is the oil used in cars usually involved in those kinds of fires? I thought those were usually more caused by things like linseed oil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linseed_oil#Spontaneous_combustion
Never heard of anyone using linseed oil in their crank case.
Normally improper disposal of motor oil may make a fire situation worst, but doesn't, as far as I know, tend to cause them. Whereas, improper disposal of rags soaked in linseed oil (normally used in paints) has been the primary cause of a few fires.
> I have to admit, it was ingenious. They seemed to put as much effort into the decryption/restoration
> part of the virus as they did the infection/encryption. I suppose this is because if it was known that
> even if you paid there was a good chance you wouldn't get your data back then you wouldn't pay -
> but still - i was impressed.
If you think about it, the story where they hit the police, who paid, and got their files back is amazing advertising for them. There is now a high profile, widely circulated story which shows positively: they actually do what they promise to do. I bet that has seriously helped them get paid.
I mean sure, in a normal "service" they could have just done that one right and screwed everyone else, but, as an "IT Service" (lol) doing it right once means they can do it right over and over, so why not?
If you are going to be the gang that everybody hates, and wants to see go away, you may as well be the gang everybody hates and wishes would go away, but is known for at least honoring your extortion contracts. Nobody wants to pay you, if they think they are scewed either way, why would they?
At least if they hate you but know they really are getting what they pay for.... its not like it costs that much more to do right.
> No, UN resolutions aren't binding. But they are a reflection of what governments around the world
> believe they should be seen supporting.
As opposed, of course, to what they believe they should actually support :)
Kind of like the Yemeni and other officials who work behind the scenes with American intelligence while running for office under the banner of hating America?
> Unless you think that all voting is fixed, we vote these people into office
That's a nice excuse. Actually I consider the form of it so broken as to basically amount to being fixed. In any case, voting, while requisit for what i would call a fair and legitimate system is not sufficient. Powers must be very strictly limited, and its clear that the current in place attempts at finding such limits have utterly failed.
Time to start over.
> Anarchy is never a solution to regulation where society is involved.
Never? Maybe maybe not. Sure sounds better than the violent thuggery we have now.
This is very true, but, that is kind of the point of a hedge isn't it? Yes its possible for many things to happen but, the more ways you have to catch yourself when you need it, more likely that one of them still holds.
Yup, and if things are that bad that I am trading gold for bread, what would I be doing without even the gold? Trading fists for bread? One thing I can guarantee is that, if that day comes, I wont magically be 20 again.
You are likely right, but, I don't see how the few regulations which have positive effects justify keeping the mass murderer alive because he regularly helps old ladies across the road. A new version of the FDA can be created after the criminals in power have been hanged for their prodigious crimes.
His point about lack of regulation allowing disgusting markets is valid. However, I suggest tolerance for this is partially the result of bad regulation creating disgusting markets of its own.
The inability to regulate is what drew me to bitcoin originally, its why I said "Aha! This is great" and what made me want to support it, even if it might be doomed to fail (I am not convinced one way or the other actually, which infuriates some people who have less btc than me who hang on every swing while I shrug it off.... making money was never why I was interested in btc)
Thing is, for all this talk of regulation being good, its also done absolutely terrible things. Terrible things, which drive people like myself to say "good, fuck the regulator scum". Their regulations created the gang problems in this country with their monumentally stupid drug war. Tally the body count on that boondoggle and then complain to me about assasination markets that have never verifiably produced a body.
All the while "regulation" has created the most perverse markets ever, driving safer drugs off the street, and making the worst abuses the most profitable.
Regulators can't be trusted and are typically blind to the destruction they leave in their wake. If bitcoin should die, I, for one, will support the next cryptocurrency that makes regulation hard or impossible. Its what the track record of regulators deserve.
I have only bought a tiny amount of gold and silver myself, but this was always the view I took of it. It isn't that I expect it to become a common currency again; or that I expect to get rich off it, but its a little fall back that will always be worth something in a worst case, or maybe something that can be used as collateral for a loan in a pinch. A small hedge against other calamities...and if I never use it and it just gets passed on to family, then I imagine I will have lead a comfortable enough life.
So if the price cuts in half or more, even if it drops down to the $300/oz of my teenage years, Hopefully it does that while other things (like pay or retirement accounts) rise; if not; at least it may take less of a fall than other things. Getting $300 for a coin you paid $1200 or more for is a loss.... but compare that to stocks you paid $100 for and are now worth nothing at all, or just pennies.... and which bet turned out better?
Maybe gold isn't a money maker, but, its not a bad diversification or hedge bet against even bigger losses.