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Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

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Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#271

Post by crdb »

CodeMage wrote: post #211
dEnigma wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which reminds me of this great passage in Atlas Shrugged : “Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough…

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

Responding with an ad hominem - whether at the author of the quote or the poster of it by association - is both an ineffective response (the appeal to emotion signals an inability to argue rationally) and lowers the quality of discussion (by taking it away from the point, into emotional territory).

Constant appeals to emotion and resorting to a wide array of fallacies allows for strongmen to build tribes which follow them blindly (no need to bother forming policy) and is how we end up with Trump vs Clinton in 2016 (see [1] for the impact on the legislative process). Reducing the quality of debate is therefore a harmful thing with real consequences.

One line of argument might be to criticise the paranoid nature of the quote: it is entirely possible that a mess of laws arises naturally from a mix of special interests doing some lobbying to preserve small advantages for themselves, and bad laws arising as a form of horse trading necessary to get policy enacted. Only then does this mess presents an opportunity to manipulators.

[1] http://imgur.com/a/Wmoex - "Voting Relationships between Senators in the 101st through 113th Congresses"

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#272

Post by dbg31415 »

dmix wrote: post #173
rdl wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also committing to a "fuck NSLs, we'll just go public and take it all the way legally" stance upfront might deter NSLs in the first place.

The fact no-one has done this means the consequences must be absolutely devastating. Probably jail time for executives and potential financial collapse. Probably the only time an executive would go to jail for breaking the law in the US...

People with success tend to be afraid of losing it. They know it's mostly all luck and lightening probably won't strike twice.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#273

Post by jcbeard »

rhizome wrote: post #252
serf wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same John Rogers that helped write the story for the newest 'Catwoman' and 'Transformers' movies? I'm not so sure he's in the best position to qualify as a literary critic.

You don't have to be a lit crit to come to a solid conclusion that Rand should not be followed as a life plan. I feel the same way about "The Prince" and "The Art of War," both of which I haven't read because I don't want them poisoning my brain.

They're excellent. You should read both, critically. You should likely throw in the Fountainhead as well....and for good measure should likely also read Exodus, 1914, The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen, and likely more fun stuff like the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers. The history, passion, and often hypocrisy found are enlightening. Ayn R. had wonderful insights into the human condition...as a previous author had said, the solutions were often a bit twisted. If you want really interesting, dig into Beyond Good and Evil. I read all of Nietzsche while I was in officer basic a long time ago. Very interesting stuff. I guess my point is, don't discount literature because you disagree with it.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#274

Post by isaaaaah »

rhizome wrote: post #252
serf wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same John Rogers that helped write the story for the newest 'Catwoman' and 'Transformers' movies? I'm not so sure he's in the best position to qualify as a literary critic.

You don't have to be a lit crit to come to a solid conclusion that Rand should not be followed as a life plan. I feel the same way about "The Prince" and "The Art of War," both of which I haven't read because I don't want them poisoning my brain.

It is phrases and words, accumulated to symbols, that form our thoughts. A whole network is being built upon it which will then be your subconcious mind. It is interesting how much of such phrases one might used to get a simple point across. Like an oyster hiding their pearl. To get to the pearl you need to be well aware so you are not trapped in a shell that is not yours.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#275

Post by dredmorbius »

jamisteven wrote: post #133
lmm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not really newsworthy that data from an email provider is sent to NSA under secret court orders and NSA can search the full text of it. It absolutely is newsworthy. We may have suspected it beforehand, we may suspect it happens at other providers, but we have specific proof about Yahoo now. This is new and important and we should be making a fuss. If we play the jaded cynic we are joining the enemies of democr…

Have you been living under a rock for the past 5 years? Snowden revealed all of this ions ago now and provided plenty of proof.

Edward Snowden's revelations were made in 2013. The Yahoo story concerns events of 2015, and programs specifically begun in 2015.

Ed Snowden's good. But he's not Timelord good.

The Yahoo revelations are new, and material. And exceptionally bad for Yahoo, Verizon (who've their own dark history of mass surveillance participation), and Mayer, who took on a tough job with a sinking ship and based on latest information made it worse and the holes bigger.

I have a hard time seeing how this doesn't implicate the entire SAAS / centralised services Web world by association, particularly with the lack of comment from other vendors.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#276

Post by dredmorbius »

duaneb wrote: post #5
mtgx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like she was a pretty terrible CEO all-around. But as a user, I would never use a service run by Marissa Mayer again. She lost that trust for good.

> But as a user, I would never use a service run by Marissa Mayer again. She lost that trust for good. Realistically, this is every American company. Why trust anyone?

This is an instance of a specific executive, specific betrayal of user interests, and a specific mode of betrayal.

Meyer is toast.

I'll agree that the general level of trust evinced by corporate America is low, but there is considerable variance within that domain.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#277

Post by mike_lang »

rhizome wrote: post #252
serf wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same John Rogers that helped write the story for the newest 'Catwoman' and 'Transformers' movies? I'm not so sure he's in the best position to qualify as a literary critic.

You don't have to be a lit crit to come to a solid conclusion that Rand should not be followed as a life plan. I feel the same way about "The Prince" and "The Art of War," both of which I haven't read because I don't want them poisoning my brain.

EDIT: I as well assumed you were referring to Sun Tzu. I can't speak to whether my comments hold for Machiavelli's at all.

If you've lumped "The Art of War" into the same category in your mind as Ayn Rand's writings, I suggest you to read it. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised. Aside from being both commonly cited as influential (in greater or lesser unfortunate ways), there's really about zero similarity between the two.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#278

Post by dredmorbius »

CodeMage wrote: post #211
dEnigma wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which reminds me of this great passage in Atlas Shrugged : “Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough…

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

Rand is properly criticised with extreme prejudice.

The passage, moustache-twirling or otherwise, is a fair presentation of the principle of threat-based leverage and its use.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#279

Post by CodeMage »

crdb wrote: post #271
CodeMage wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

Responding with an ad hominem - whether at the author of the quote or the poster of it by association - is both an ineffective response (the appeal to emotion signals an inability to argue rationally) and lowers the quality of discussion (by taking it away from the point, into emotional territory). Constant appeals to emotion and resorting to a wide array of fallacies allows for strongmen to build tribes which follow…

I was tempted to reply with a "found the objectivist" just to illustrate what "ad hominem" really means, but I'm waiting for a build, so I have time to kill.

Ad hominem would have been to attack Ayn Rand. I didn't do that. The quote I used doesn't attack the author, it attacks the work. I happen to agree with it. If you want to criticize it, you would do better to point out that the quote I used is not constructive criticism. I would agree with that, but I would probably also point out that humorous quips rarely are.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#280

Post by CodeMage »

joeblow9999 wrote: post #224
CodeMage wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

Doesn't mean the quote isn't apt and good.

The quote is somewhat apt, because it describes, to a certain degree, the current state of federal laws. That's the best thing I can say about the quote. It certainly isn't good.

Those same views of the nature of power were much better expressed by Orwell in his "1984". That's what I would call good.

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