281–290 of 329 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you written anywhere about how you arrived at such a radical position? (I mean radical in the traditional sense, not as a slur)
I don't see how it's radical. It's the only logical conclusion. Many people have written about this. I haven't read a single convincing argument in favor of privacy as anything other than a defensive measure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So no? I don't care about the labeling. I want to better understand the reasoning. Or at least, what pieces of information make it so obvious.
I'm of a similar (although not identical) opinion to miguelrochefort. The short answer is... if you imagine a utopia, do you imagine lots of secrets or lots of openness and acceptance? The reality is that I came to this conclusion through a long process but I'm pretty tired. The process definitely considered whether the 'private' version of the world was even possible. I don't think it is. Surveillance will happen. B…
In your utopia, if you ask me a question, do I have to answer honestly? That people would always want to answer honestly is not a satisfying answer.
On this subject, if anyone is interested, we just launched a free, open source, Android mobile app to help people manage the complex issues of digital and physical security. It's got simple lessons on everything from sending a secure mail to dealing with a kidnap.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> […] any ethical objections I may have are meaningless, as the only thing I can do to object is lose all my household income and be replaced by someone more pliant. “ How do you know the chosen ones? ‘No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.’ Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame. For one person. In the dark, where no one will ever know, or see. ” — Babylon 5, Season 2, episode 2…
Nice quote, but... "The Earth belongs in usufruct to the living; the dead have neither powers nor rights over it." --Thomas Jefferson, to James Madison, Sep 6, 1789 For all the influence exerted by people like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., they effected change with their lives, and not their deaths. One should not choose to die for a cause, or against one. Rather, live for your own principles, and teach…
I would argue the most important changes they affected were for themselves. You don't risk your health by helping someone who gets attacked to earn their gratitude, but to be able to look in the mirror. That's the only thing that gives enough energy to sustain certain things for years and decades. And Rosa Parks for example didn't plan to end segregation, she was sick of putting up with it. Nothing more, nothing less. How great other people are in your eyes is does not matter for what value their own acts of moral hygiene have to them, and people don't need "expect" a reward for such things because the deed itself IS the reward. They already have it. And since you brought up MLK:
I say to you this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you aren't willing to die for it then you aren't fit to live.
[..]
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid... You refuse to do it because you want to live longer... You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid someone will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you're just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOjpaIO2seY&t=18m26s
> In a society of equals, for anyone to die unnecessarily is a tragedy. For someone to choose to die, it is a horror.
Here's a secret: everybody dies, either way. The only choice you have is how you live. From John J. Chapman's commencement address to the graduating class of Hobart College, 1900:
If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners.
> It is not fitting to convince anyone to believe they are so unworthy that the best way they might serve others is by throwing themselves into fires that need never have been lit.
People who are great don't need to be convinced of anything. People who aren't are impossible to convince. And it's not "fitting" to justify stoking fires because otherwise others would do it, either. Then let those others do it? And hey, for all you know, they all might be doing it because otherwise you would do it.
And who is actually sacrificing? People who aren't sacrificing their ideals and their morals, or people who sacrifice them for some food and a few decades more?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm of a similar (although not identical) opinion to miguelrochefort. The short answer is... if you imagine a utopia, do you imagine lots of secrets or lots of openness and acceptance? The reality is that I came to this conclusion through a long process but I'm pretty tired. The process definitely considered whether the 'private' version of the world was even possible. I don't think it is. Surveillance will happen. B…
How do bathroom doors fit into this? In your utopia, if you ask me a question, do I have to answer honestly? That people would always want to answer honestly is not a satisfying answer.
If you don't answer honestly, then people won't consider your answers to be reliable, and therefore everything you say will have less value.
Imagine a person that's completely transparent and honest. You can't find a more predictable and reliable person. That's something you can trust and rely on. How could you dislike such a person? Honesty is beautiful.
We live in a society where there's a race to the bottom when in comes to openness. We all are ashamed, lie, cheat. Full of insecurities. Constant worries. Who would like that?
This leads to a society where appareance is more important than substance. You go to we'll rated schools nkt to learn and get better, but to impress your future employer and get prestigious jobs. They hire you for the same reason (safer to justify hiring Ivy League students to your boss). The best way to get a job and climb up the ladder is nkt to work on your skills, it's to bullshit well. All because we're used to seeing the perfect side of people (they get to choose what they show you). That's just disgusting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of people have an abstract idea that information is being collected, yes. I suspect that few people realize or know what the amount of information is, who has access to it, what purposes they use it for. Does anyone remember that angry email they sent 5 years ago where they were criticizing their boss? Google does. What kind of profile can you build from thousands and thousands of such emails, messages and quer…
And thanks to this technology, people can understand themselves better, if they choose to. It's truly bizzare that some people instead take away that the right way to "correct" this discrepancy is for companies to know less.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do bathroom doors fit into this? In your utopia, if you ask me a question, do I have to answer honestly? That people would always want to answer honestly is not a satisfying answer.
I don't know that bathrooms need doors. If you don't answer honestly, then people won't consider your answers to be reliable, and therefore everything you say will have less value. Imagine a person that's completely transparent and honest. You can't find a more predictable and reliable person. That's something you can trust and rely on. How could you dislike such a person? Honesty is beautiful. We live in a society w…
"This affects all of us. We must care." is not an effective way of convincing someone. I personally do not care about privacy. I see no reason why I should. It's just my opinion. I know other people do but please don't generalize.
A right to privacy is similar to a right to lock one's car doors when traveling through a bad neighborhood.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm of a similar (although not identical) opinion to miguelrochefort. The short answer is... if you imagine a utopia, do you imagine lots of secrets or lots of openness and acceptance? The reality is that I came to this conclusion through a long process but I'm pretty tired. The process definitely considered whether the 'private' version of the world was even possible. I don't think it is. Surveillance will happen. B…
How do bathroom doors fit into this? In your utopia, if you ask me a question, do I have to answer honestly? That people would always want to answer honestly is not a satisfying answer.
I don't favor coercion, so nobody is going to be forced to say or do anything.
Refusing to answer would be like refusing to help someone who request your help. Considering that answering the question is relatively inexpensive, you really don't have a reason not to do so. Unless you're hiding something, which will make people think of you as selfish.
I wouldn't trust a person that is selective when it comes to answering questions. They'll only say the truth you want to hear, which will contribute to bias and poor understanding of reality.
Moreover, its just plain simpler for a person to systematically tell the truth. Seriously, the mental burden of remembering lies and keeping secrets is probably extremely underrated.
I think the tech crowd is in denial about their role in surveillance. We expect professionals to behave ethically. Doctors and companies working on genetics and cloning for instance are expected to behave ethically and have constraints placed on their work. And with consequences for those behaving unethically. Yet we have millions of software engineers working on building a surveillance society with no sense of ethic…
I left the NSA a few months ago largely for these reasons. While I knew I personally couldn't do much (if anything) to stem the onslaught against human rights, I knew at the very least I didn't want my life's work contributing to it. So I left, leaving behind a very secure sysadmin position with good salary, six weeks of paid vacation and incredible health benefits. Now I'm a 1099 independent contractor for a financi…