101–110 of 360 posts
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For a second I thought you were talking about Google. Food for thought.
CIA founded Google, for one. An apple doesn't fall far from a tree. https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
"Did the CIA directly fund the work of Brin and Page, and therefore create Google? No."
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> After 9/11, nobody wanted privacy or to even talk about privacy. Yup! And not only did the NSA turn into a monster, but so did the TSA (or more aptly, that monster was created), the biggest theatre troupe on the planet, because that's all it is. The most eye opening thing happened just recently to cement this in my mind. After the Superbowl parade in Philadelphia this year, I caught a ride from PHL to SFO. Basicall…
> So let me get this straight. For years, I've been disrobing in public and subjecting myself to groping on the off-chance that someone might have a bomb tucked under their scrotum, yet on the BUSIEST DAY EVER it's okay to throw all those security protocols out the window.... why?? I get your point, but you are making a logical mistake here. If a building shuts down it's fire warning systems and blocks the fire exits…
Do fire alarms have a 95% failure rate? Because the TSA does.
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> So let me get this straight. For years, I've been disrobing in public and subjecting myself to groping on the off-chance that someone might have a bomb tucked under their scrotum, yet on the BUSIEST DAY EVER it's okay to throw all those security protocols out the window.... why?? I get your point, but you are making a logical mistake here. If a building shuts down it's fire warning systems and blocks the fire exits…
I don't think it's quite the same as your analogy. The reason we have to go through scanners and take off our shoes and get groped is because once upon a time, some bad actors got through security with contraband. We then decided we just had to spend millions upon millions of dollars, train thousands of people, and inconvenience and embarrass millions of passengers because if we didn't, more bad actors would get thro…
Lines are great targets.
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I take issue with some of these points. > Property tax > Schools suck > Roads suck I have no argument there. > Sales tax Have these been rising recently? > Gas tax > Gas peices [prices] are out of control Gas prices and whatever embedded taxes they have aren't that bad. They're much better than their peak around 2008 at over $4/gal. > The recycling fund was looted I'm not familiar with this. > Social security was loo…
"In its annual report filed to the SEC in February 2018, Amazon estimated that not only would the company not be paying anything in 2017 federal income taxes, but it would be getting a $137 million tax refund." http://services.corporate-ir.net/SEC.Enhanced/SecCapsule.asp...
Also, that refund is something that happened only in 2017; they paid over $1B in federal taxes in 2016, for example.
Private enterprise wants to use all this data to "maximize their returns" through "discretionary pricing" and even "discretionary offers" (you never even hear of the product, if you are not the targeted demographic).
In other words, discrimination.
As far as countering said discrimination? In the U.S., we couldn't even "fix" health care. One of the single most important "products" to "consumers".
So yeah, all the rest of the arguments from "the powers that be", for all this data collection and "targeting", mean exactly crap to me.
I just look at what they're doing. And I don't see ANY benefit for me, Joe Ordinary. Nor for Joe "Down On His Luck". Be born into the "wrong circumstances", or make one mis-step, experience one misfortune. And a "data-driven", "AI-enhanced" marketplace -- and perhaps "algorithmic" "law" enforcement -- will lock you into a positive feedback loop of downward pressure.
The invisible hand of zero sum gain.
And now we can add to all this systems like China's. Speak up, speak out about this, and your "social" score goes down. No higher education for your. No travel.
So yeah, 500M call records. This feels like its going in exactly the right direction. Not.
With all their data collection, why don't they pop the SWIFT records and some other collection likely pertinent to current suspected abuses of power and corruption pertaining to our leadership. You'd think such things would be critical to the safety of our democracy.
Democra-what? Yeah.
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We have not been made (substantially) safer. The trade was not worth it. A town near me recently installed ANPR license plate readers. Their justification was to catch criminals, particularly those engaging in property crimes which were going unsolved. Did ANPR help solve some property crimes? Almost certainly. Were property crimes up significantly prior to the installation of the ANPR readers? No. Are they down sign…
>We have not been made (substantially) safer. How do you know that? >Were property crimes up significantly prior to the installation of the ANPR readers? No. Are they down significantly after? No. I get that this comparison sounds similar, but it really doesn't make any sense. The most powerful nations in the world are constantly trying to gain as much access to our secure systems, communications, and infrastructure.…
Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]). All those warning from Snowden all those secret software reveals from wikileaks an untold amount of funding from congress with virtually no oversight. And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. What exactly d…
> Whom are they protecting? Cause it sure is not the average citizen. But was there ever any indication to the contrary? How did we as Americans convert to the myth that our government, let alone our "intelligence" agencies, have any inclination to protect us or advance our interests? That has never been their practice ever. Our government spent the better part of a century not only allowing 3.5 million of us to live…
Could you explain what you mean by enslaving as prisoner? So you would let a rapist free or what?
What's the denominator of that fraction?
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> Whom are they protecting? Cause it sure is not the average citizen. But was there ever any indication to the contrary? How did we as Americans convert to the myth that our government, let alone our "intelligence" agencies, have any inclination to protect us or advance our interests? That has never been their practice ever. Our government spent the better part of a century not only allowing 3.5 million of us to live…
If your comment is meant to be sarcastic, then I am failing to see it... Could you explain what you mean by enslaving as prisoner? So you would let a rapist free or what?
500M in all of 2017? Oh, come on! We found out that Verizon -- just Verizon -- was handing over "phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily" in June 2013. 500M might be an official number that they're willing to release but (without any way to prove it, obviously) I'm certain that the REAL number is much, much higher. For an organization who has vowed to "collect it all", it just doesn't seem likely that th…