81–90 of 189 posts
Is there anything states can do about this? And, if this passes, is there any way to protect myself? Obviously if the NSA is hoarding zero-days there isn't much you can do, but what are some practical steps? 1) avoid airports and security cameras 2) use an offshore VPN at all times 3) don't use the phone, use E2E encrypted calling like Signal 4) use cash as often as possible, or cryptocurrency Or does none of that ma…
Is anyone else fatigued? The effort required, ontop of just having a normal functioning life, to parse and make decisions around potential future law is incredible. Isn't this what elected officials are ment to do on our behalf?
"We only have hours"? What are we supposed to do in those hours? Make phone calls that won't get through? Tweet? Forget it. Senators and congressmen don't fear their constituents so they're not going to listen to their constituents.
We may only have hours left to watch elected representation completely ignore the welfare of the electorate again, but we probably still have months left to choose who exactly it is that we will be shoving up against the wall when the revolution comes. At this point, when they obviously don't fear losing their office, they need to fear something else. If you can't bring yourself to do physical violence, you can maybe…
But why not channel your destructive urges into dismantling internalized oppression? The ways that you and I go about maintaining these very structures we are each so angry about?
I'm a musician. I once played at a fancy downtown club that took my band's working/middle class crowd for granted. They had two shows every night: an early set with very expensive tickets and international artists, and a late night set with local artists and cheap tickets.
They once made our audience... Hundreds of people... wait for an two hours, standing in the lobby, on valentines evening, because a bunch of drunk rich people had paid $150/ea for an earlier show, and they didn't have the guts to tell them to leave after it was over. We didn't get to sound check. I didn't get a monitor. Our friends and family waited for two hours to hear us play. We had to cut our set in half.
After that I refused to play there anymore. This was a regular place at the time, but I told my friends that I was done, and explained myself. I loved the staff there. The sound was amazing. They had great food and lighting and all that. But I was tired of the management's priorities. They willingly engaged in segregating our communities to squeeze out the money. They weren't curating, they were leaching. I was over it.
Know what happened? Not much at first. People kept asking me to play there. I said "nope, I'm done".
Two years later, hardly anyone I know plays there ever. My little stand made a real difference.
There are other venues in town that have been similarly 86'd by a few trusted leaders in the community. It makes space for new ways of doing things to let go of an old, tired staple.
Why not find something like that in your life that you can do to take a stand?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, yes I am. For years, my two biggest spheres of advocacy have been environmentalism and privacy/anti-surveillance. What I've noticed, with that background, is that privacy activism has steadily become more like environmental activism. With rare exceptions (e.g. the ozone layer), environmentalism is an endless, grinding rear-guard action. Extinct species do not become unextinct. Destroyed habitats do not recover,…
And depressingly it won't rollback until tyrannical governments get in power and run amok. The sheer damage politicians across the world are inflicting on future generations with these privacy laws are very depressing.
But its clear we need a nonpartisan group who can successfully rally most of America on the left and the right.
Bad tax reform that benefits mostly corporations and the 1% reported by foreign news outlets get flagged here, but talk about a spy group or internet regulation and suddenly politics is fair game. I'm sick of the echo chamber and the pathetic rules of civility strangling human communication, the invisible voting down of opinions people don't like, the moderation filters that carve out a single world view catered to a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, yes I am. For years, my two biggest spheres of advocacy have been environmentalism and privacy/anti-surveillance. What I've noticed, with that background, is that privacy activism has steadily become more like environmental activism. With rare exceptions (e.g. the ozone layer), environmentalism is an endless, grinding rear-guard action. Extinct species do not become unextinct. Destroyed habitats do not recover,…
Kinda off-topic but 4,500 species are critically endangered right now Based on the fact that more than 99.9% of all the species are now extinct, how is this an alarming sign? It seems like a part of the natural evolutionary process.
Is there plan to bombard the american public on so many fronts that they accept mass surveillance? What the actual fuck is wrong with this country.
And FISA reauthorization always happens a few days before Christmas. Californians, remember to vote Feinstein out in the Democratic primary . She's been one of the main champions of this bill and type of mass surveillance (as well as the anti-encryption bills, which she's not giving up). It's probably one of the reasons why she decided to go back on her promise not to run again, so she can pass it once more in a few…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, yes I am. For years, my two biggest spheres of advocacy have been environmentalism and privacy/anti-surveillance. What I've noticed, with that background, is that privacy activism has steadily become more like environmental activism. With rare exceptions (e.g. the ozone layer), environmentalism is an endless, grinding rear-guard action. Extinct species do not become unextinct. Destroyed habitats do not recover,…
Kinda off-topic but 4,500 species are critically endangered right now Based on the fact that more than 99.9% of all the species are now extinct, how is this an alarming sign? It seems like a part of the natural evolutionary process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a false dichotomy which is enabling to the surveillance state.
When was the last time a 3rd party candidate won?