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25 years of mass surveillance is enough

schneier.com

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Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#211

Post by frumplestlatz »

RajT88 wrote: post #13

> It says that the government “will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender and anarchist” and “will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa.” So, Democratic candidates who are looking like the…

> So, Democratic candidates who are looking like they will win a seat this midterm cycle are going to get arrested for "domestic terrorism".

It would be fascinating to revisit this comment with you after the midterms and see whether your beliefs have changed in any way.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#212

Post by iamnothere »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #201
iamnothere wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a class, they steer things through emergent behavior and overlapping self interest in certain areas. As individuals, they can’t afford to trust each other without leverage.

[flagged]

As a class, they have a set of similar incentives (grow/retain resources and power networks) that lead to similar actions (avoid taxation, buy influence, weaken regulators, etc). They may cooperate at times, but they are not a coherent organization with a roster, votes, and leadership.

As individuals, they are dangerous competitors, and they can’t afford to trust each other too much without some kind of mutual leverage. This could be in the form of mutual equity holdings, blackmail, complex arrangements where each party has exposure, whatever. But even then, trust has limits.

There’s no cabal that runs things with rules and elections at this level. It’s all individuals who are immersed in the systems that made them wealthy. Those systems tend to lead to certain behaviors. That’s it.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#213

Post by cestith »

rpdillon wrote: post #152
rickdeckard wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the intention of what you're saying, you're still attempting a definition of the term "anti-American", which needs no definition as the term should be rejected as a whole.

I mean, there are American values. The country was built around the idea of limiting the federal government's power, and adherence not a person, but to a set of values (like freedom of speech). We're explictly founded on the concept of rule of law. Through that lens, it is very clear what anti-American means: adherence and loyalty to a person instead of a set of values, expansive government overreach, erosion of indi…

What Trump and his followers mean by it, though, is that any disagreement with Trump on policy, strategy, tactics, procedure, or belief is anti-American. The way they use the term "anti-American" is anti-American. Therefore the term outside of context is meaningless. It's been coopted, twisted, and perverted.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#214

Post by danielmarkbruce »

iamnothere wrote: post #212
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As a class, they have a set of similar incentives (grow/retain resources and power networks) that lead to similar actions (avoid taxation, buy influence, weaken regulators, etc). They may cooperate at times, but they are not a coherent organization with a roster, votes, and leadership. As individuals, they are dangerous competitors, and they can’t afford to trust each other too much without some kind of mutual levera…

You could make this statement about any group at all. And then once you realize people are in multiple groups, the whole thing devolves into chaos.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#215

Post by foxglacier »

abustamam wrote: post #196
nonethewiser wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not quite following. Things can be mislabeled as anti American, but everyone has some idea of whats anti-American in principle. Anti free speech for example is anti American. How that gets applied is a matter of debate. But I think all public officials should agree with that. Its kind of a fundamental thing to have an idea about the nation’s values. If that’s too taboo for someone then they are quite literally ant…

I'm Muslim. Born in the US. I've seen politicians and right wing public figures call my entire faith anti-American. One of them just had a nice memorial for their one-year since their death. The term may have had an agreed upon meaning at some point, but not anymore. Edit: it seems like most right-wing people conflate "non-Christian" with "anti-American". i don't know what's worse; the fact that these people say and…

[flagged]

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#216

Post by Varelion »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #201
iamnothere wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a class, they steer things through emergent behavior and overlapping self interest in certain areas. As individuals, they can’t afford to trust each other without leverage.

[flagged]

Look into a class on systems thinking.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#217

Post by godelski »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #201
iamnothere wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a class, they steer things through emergent behavior and overlapping self interest in certain areas. As individuals, they can’t afford to trust each other without leverage.

[flagged]

It doesn't need any intelligence at all. There's mutually beneficial things to any group of people. So it doesn't require explicit coordination. Even fairly unintelligent animals have symbiotic relationships with other species. So your argument is what, that billionaires are less intelligent than an ant?

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#218

Post by iamnothere »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #214
iamnothere wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a class, they have a set of similar incentives (grow/retain resources and power networks) that lead to similar actions (avoid taxation, buy influence, weaken regulators, etc). They may cooperate at times, but they are not a coherent organization with a roster, votes, and leadership. As individuals, they are dangerous competitors, and they can’t afford to trust each other too much without some kind of mutual levera…

You could make this statement about any group at all. And then once you realize people are in multiple groups, the whole thing devolves into chaos.

To a degree, yes, it’s why looking at people on the level of groups is not that useful for predicting individual behavior and beliefs, only aggregate behavior and beliefs.

However, some groups do have identifiable leadership, rules, membership rosters, etc. Political parties for instance, or governmental bodies. Decisions from groups like this often have an identifiable lineage (from proposal to vote) and are considered binding. This contrasts with the sort of emergent decisions I was discussing in the context of the very wealthy. There was no vote, there was no formal coordination, and the “decision” is not binding, yet everyone can see its effects. Opposing something like this is like boxing with a shadow.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#219

Post by paulryanrogers »

N_Lens wrote: post #33
api wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet there's incentive structures that push it forward. It's a classic example of us being dragged along by incentives and emergent patterns against our individual wills and better judgement. People think it's a conspiracy of the elite, but the last part of your message is true and it makes me wonder to what extent everyone is being dragged along by everyone else and nobody can stop because nobody can stop. I mean if…

I mostly agree with your take. The ultra wealthy are entrapped by their own minds & machines of wealth that have tight demands.

> The ultra wealthy are entrapped by their own minds & machines of wealth that have tight demands.

But only within their minds. They could change their minds, donate or pay enough taxes that their billions would be distributed far and wide. Then they'd no longer be trapped.

Plenty of people make the choice to stop acquiring, stop increasing their wealth, and stop having more everything (kids, houses, cars, pets, hobbies, etc).

It's hard for those who have no choice, and those who've made different choices, to relate to the insatiable appetite of billionaires.

These people also have much more leverage to change the world in substantial, albeit often short lived ways. My family has been hurt by the DOGE cuts. Hopefully it's not a permanent injury. Yet it's very real.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#220

Post by godelski »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #214
iamnothere wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a class, they have a set of similar incentives (grow/retain resources and power networks) that lead to similar actions (avoid taxation, buy influence, weaken regulators, etc). They may cooperate at times, but they are not a coherent organization with a roster, votes, and leadership. As individuals, they are dangerous competitors, and they can’t afford to trust each other too much without some kind of mutual levera…

You could make this statement about any group at all. And then once you realize people are in multiple groups, the whole thing devolves into chaos.

  > You could make this statement about any group at all.
Yes, that's the point

  > And then once you realize people are in multiple groups, the whole thing devolves into chaos.
You have bad priors. That would only happen if groups could only have singular and simple goals. It requires those goals to be mutually exclusive. Because as soon as they overlap, even just a little, cooperation becomes an effective strategy.

Hell, history shows us enemies often cooperate. Mostly to defeat a mutual enemy, so they can go back to fighting each other, but that's still cooperation

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