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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

#371

Post by pstuart »

overfeed wrote: post #326
pstuart wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been called a "shrill far leftist" and a "fascist appeaser" so does that make me a centrist? Any labeling I may apply to myself is for convenience of packaged assumptions about my values. > moderates who think of themselves as being on the left agree with the idea that past weak attempts to nudge things leftward "went too far" Examples please? Not a challenge, I just am not pickup up what you're laying down. As…

I could have been more clear in my writing, but I was adding to your point of things that trap the left. The "Sir/Ma'am" was addressing a hypothetical left-ish "moderate" who gets trapped into criticizing other on the left by conservative talking points - not accusing you personally. I have no idea what your politics are.

My politics are based on secular humanism and that we all effectively live in a commons.

I'm rabidly anti-partisan but align with Dems because they are the least worst option.

> gets trapped into criticizing other on the left by conservative talking points

One thing I'll concede about the Right -- they excel at defining the language and debate and the Left is almost always playing defense.

But to be a broken record here: the Culture War is the only thing the Right has to offer in the realm of political debate. It's a cheap and nasty, yet incredibly effective tool to manipulate people to vote against their own interest by their induced fear, hate, and anger.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#372

Post by philipallstar »

ipsod wrote: post #369
philipallstar wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. They pay giant amounts of tax. The people not paying tax, or costing negative tax, are who you mean.

Do they? The 2021 ProPublica tax leak showed the 25 richest Americans paid a "true tax rate" of roughly 3.4% on their $401 billion in wealth growth between 2014 and 2018, because their wealth grew without triggering realization events.

Try seeing how much net tax a government employee pays. It's in the negatives. Or a benefits recipient.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#373

Post by ok_dad »

MentalM wrote: post #355
modo_mario wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they can easily pay 80%, 90%, 95%, or even 98% of their incomes Not american but I'd presume food, protection from the elements and healthcare costs arefor the vast majority higher than what's left over even if they only afford themselves the minimum no? Where I live the absolute bottom segment of housing is proportionally more expensive and the price inflexible because smaller or shitier quite frankly doens't…

> I'd presume food, protection from the elements and healthcare costs arefor the vast majority higher than what's left over even if they only afford themselves the minimum no? Obviously no. What a hypocrisy and shifting of blame. "The minimum" you'd get if you are working for less than 20 cents per hour. When you are working for several dollars per hour, you are drowning in luxury comparing to the rest of the world a…

If you’re going to go after Americans then I guess anyone around the world not living in a run down shack in the middle of nowhere without water and electricity is also taking advantage. Americans are well off compared to a lot of places but not the whole rest of the world, not even close. Get some perspective.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#374

Post by ipsod »

philipallstar wrote: post #372
ipsod wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? The 2021 ProPublica tax leak showed the 25 richest Americans paid a "true tax rate" of roughly 3.4% on their $401 billion in wealth growth between 2014 and 2018, because their wealth grew without triggering realization events.

Try seeing how much net tax a government employee pays. It's in the negatives. Or a benefits recipient.

Sure, undoubtedly. But, also... you don't have to make a ton of money to pay more than 3% of your income.

To be clear, I don't pretend to have preferences. I'm idealistically libertarian, but I think that nukes have ruined the right to bear arms, propaganda has ruined free speech, and central banks have ruined currency. I'm a demoralist, I guess, to coin a term.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#375

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

"Surveillance is the business model of the internet; companies like Google and Facebook constantly spy on their users’ behavior."

A few oversized websites acting as intermediaries is not "the internet"

The internet is a medium. Internet subscribers pay for access to the medium

The www is one use of the medium

These mass surveillance intermediaries operating websites are not even the entire www

But they aim to intermediate access to the rest of it

Any subscriber can use the medium and they don't have to conduct surveillance

For example

They can sell widgets

They can buy widgets

Commerce

They can also use the medium _noncommercially_

The "business model of the internet" is subscriptions. We pay for access to the medium

The (most successful) business model of the www (so far) might be advertising. That could change

But the www is not the internet. The internet is a medium, not what travels over it. It's not advertising, it's not content

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#376

Post by SaucyWrong »

philipallstar wrote: post #372
ipsod wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? The 2021 ProPublica tax leak showed the 25 richest Americans paid a "true tax rate" of roughly 3.4% on their $401 billion in wealth growth between 2014 and 2018, because their wealth grew without triggering realization events.

Try seeing how much net tax a government employee pays. It's in the negatives. Or a benefits recipient.

“Net” is not relevant, nominal tax rate matters, and billionaires are the biggest tax dodgers by far, stop trying to blame poor people and civil servants for your weird hangups.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#377

Post by SaucyWrong »

nekusar wrote: post #317
ux266478 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass demonstrations are common and frequent, more than ever. The thing is that these are mild pressures at best. What came from Occupy Wallstreet? The George Floyd protests? The No Kings marches? Anti-ICE demonstrations? They're not nothing and we should continue to have them and participate in them, but we have to recognize them as what they are: background radiation. On their own, they don't affect change or bring…

You have a strong point, and it's probably not the one you want to make. Non-violent (peaceful, loud, signs) protesting does little to nothing. Historically speaking, what does work is violence, and a lot of it. Even in the USA, our own labor battles were effectively wars, with the US military fighting against the people. It's where the Pinkertons were created. And it was bloody as hell, until FDR had some sense in m…

Agreed, Viable nonviolent protests are a useful signal that society has not (yet) converted to outright authoritarianism. This is their only use IMO. They cannot effect meaningful change. But their existence signifies we can still effect such a change without resorting to violence.

There is a threshold beyond which change can only come about via violence. I don’t wish to speculate how far away from that threshold we currently find ourselves. I think we’re closer now than we were 10 years ago.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#378

Post by danielmarkbruce »

Varelion wrote: post #366
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systems thinking as applied to human systems is about as rigorous as psychology.

Sounds like the genius take of a VP of AI Strategy.

Or, someone who knows the books and hot takes on "systems thinking" are pop-science, and the actual good ideas have been around for a long time and taught in operations research, control theory etc.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#379

Post by danielmarkbruce »

godelski wrote: post #370
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. It's perfectly consistent. No one has much power at all. No one is in charge, there is no greater power sitting above us all calling all (or even most) the shots. To use someone else's term, there is no cabal. You seem to conflate "no one is powerful" with "no one has any power in any situation at all".

> You seem to conflate "no one is powerful" with "no one has any power in any situation at all". The problem is not this, it is your claim that all power is equal, that there is no imbalance. No one is claiming God, only men

Never said equal, just that no one has much. It's just not that hard of a claim to understand. No need to twist oneself into a pretzel.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#380

Post by int_19h »

philipallstar wrote: post #372
ipsod wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? The 2021 ProPublica tax leak showed the 25 richest Americans paid a "true tax rate" of roughly 3.4% on their $401 billion in wealth growth between 2014 and 2018, because their wealth grew without triggering realization events.

Try seeing how much net tax a government employee pays. It's in the negatives. Or a benefits recipient.

The government employee at least earns their salary by actual labor.

Whereas anyone on the "top N richest" list is a parasite on all the people who produce wealth.

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