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It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

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Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#271

Post by X4 »

X4 wrote: post #266
mattlutze wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am for communities, but the only point of communities is to make the individuals that compose them happy. If a community is thriving by some metric but the individuals that compose them are unhappy, the community is pointless of even counter-productive. I think there has been a very pernicious, detrimental focus in recent history on ensuring "happiness." Life is not about being happy. Communities do not exist to…

I would agree, but the wealth gap exists here too and it's growing bigger. There are only a handful people who have earn a big percentage of what's earned in total in the country. Sorry, but had to make this clear. I am from Europe. Countries with most Billionaires: 1) USA – 409 2) China – 317 3) Russia – 88 4) Germany – 61 5) England – 56 6) India – 53 7) Switzerland – 41 8) Brazil – 33 9) Taiwan – 32 10) France – 3…

Don't take the List as absolute data, it's only showing publicly known billionaires. There are MANY secret billionaires. Germany might have +120 secret billionaires according to this article: http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=htt...

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#272

Post by eli_gottlieb »

res0nat0r wrote: post #224
angersock wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side is coming from fear. "Just want to stress from a different perspective, my family grew up poor in a 3rd world country, and they laugh at American's obsession with human rights and they just say "that's what people do if they never needed to worry about putting food on their table"." And you know why it's a 3rd world country? Because they lived how they had to and not how they ought to. Progress is not…

Says the guy living in a $2k a month studio in San Francisco whilst working from his $3k MacBook Pro at Starbucks? So your answer to everyone living in fear, in let's say Juarez, Mexico is that they need to be out in the streets protesting against the psychotic drug cartels, because that's how they "ought to" live, since you know third world country and all?

Certainly they should be taking the most effective action they can to take down the drug cartels!

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#273

Post by gnilson »

sharkweek wrote: post #19

I have an honest and serious question -- who are the developers and designers who put these systems into place for the NSA? Are they aware of what they're doing or is it all classified and contracted out? Are they proud of their work? Is it just a paycheck? Surely someone with such a high aptitude could easily get a job elsewhere -- I guess I'm just unable to make the connection on who willingly builds this kind of s…

I study CS at the University of Maryland at College Park, a school that has a strong research presence in security and is conveniently located for many of the private and govt defense firms. 2 Months ago I posed the following question on the University's subreddit:

"With recent revelations about the roles played by Palantir, SAIC, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the NSA, in alarmingly unconstitutional acts, what are people's feelings about these entities recruiting so heavily from our CS program?"

http://www.reddit.com/r/UMD/comments/1jrm56/cs_open_housecar...

I think the replies are a good representation of what I hear in person from many of my peers, and I don't think the NSA et al. are hurting to find recruits.

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#274

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jnbiche wrote: post #268
nashequilibrium wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you see the guys youtube videos? Russia contacted the U.S. about one of the brothers, also the FBI did track that he was going to Russia and also interviewd him. They failed in not being able to act on the intelligence they had. The question is what are you willing to give up to go to that LA Laker game without worrying about terrorism or whether your parents will get home safely from the game. I am not trying to…

You believe that Obama, when he started his first term, intended to "give the U.S. a conscience"? That's exactly what I believed when I voted for him first term, but by the second term, I had realized he was just another ambitious pol with easy morals, eager to represent himself as whatever was needed to win the election. So I did not vote for him (or anyone else) last election. It is possible that he wasn't lying ab…

>So I did not vote for him (or anyone else) last election.

You couldn't be bothered to vote for a third party?

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#275

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Cookingboy wrote: post #31
sharkweek wrote: post #19

I have an honest and serious question -- who are the developers and designers who put these systems into place for the NSA? Are they aware of what they're doing or is it all classified and contracted out? Are they proud of their work? Is it just a paycheck? Surely someone with such a high aptitude could easily get a job elsewhere -- I guess I'm just unable to make the connection on who willingly builds this kind of s…

What I'm about to say may be too unpopular on HackerNews. Have you considered the possibility that not everyone shares the same moral standard and ideology? People came from different backgrounds and have different experiences, and most things are not black and white, but different shades of gray in this world. I'm sure there are people who consider the Fourth Amendment to be obsolete just like there are people who c…

>Have you considered the possibility that not everyone shares the same moral standard and ideology? People came from different backgrounds and have different experiences, and most things are not black and white, but different shades of gray in this world.

So what? By my standards, they're doing the wrong thing, and my standards are what count to me.

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#276

Post by [deleted] »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #263
duairc wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me a bit of Russell's teapot[1]. Basically, you're saying, imagine if there existed “certain information”, which nobody can tell me about, but if they could, it would change my beliefs? Okay. Given what I do know, I think the chances of these programs being legitimate are about the same as the chances that there is “between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit”. [1]: http://…

You have heard Iranians chant "Death To America" at their official rallies right? How do you know that the chance that they don't mean it is zero ? Based on what information? Even at the height of the cold war nobody ever chanted "Death To America" in the Soviet Union.

[deleted]

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#277

Post by vasilipupkin »

duairc wrote: post #267
vasilipupkin wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have heard Iranians chant "Death To America" at their official rallies right? How do you know that the chance that they don't mean it is zero ? Based on what information? Even at the height of the cold war nobody ever chanted "Death To America" in the Soviet Union.

I feel like you're assuming that I'm American and that I don't want America to die. I think most people in the world will be delighted when the American empire inevitably collapses. Not just “Iranians” — as if there are “official rallies” for an entire country of people.

There are official rallies in Iran orchestrated by those who are in power and dictate policy and when they chant "Death To America", I don't think they are talking about collapse of the empire but literal death. In any case, most of us on this forum do not want the American empire to collapse. My personal opinion is the United States, for all its flaws is a force of good in the world. Often times, Europeans adopt holier than thou attitude, conveniently forgetting their own troubled history with colonialism and heavily relying on the United States for defence

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#278

Post by eli_gottlieb »

tedunangst wrote: post #159
Zigurd wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are claiming some "silent majority" is with you. And you are doing it in a forum that contains a lot of thought leaders. Color me unconvinced. This is utterly the same as the people who claimed reddit was irrelevant until reddit readership got to be some huge percentage (70M, about the same as Pinterest) of the population.

Huge percentage? Really?

6% of USA adults are redditors. That's larger than some ethnic minorities.

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#279

Post by eli_gottlieb »

sokoloff wrote: post #141
hackula1 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, we will lie about what we are actually doing. I can understand taking some drastic measures to prevent epic disaster, however, I see no good reason to cover up what is actually going on; threats and countermeasures. By lying, they are forcing us to assume the worst.

And if you assume the worst, they don't (and shouldn't) care. This isn't a popularity contest for them, and the NSA operates as if there is a legitimate national security purpose to what they're doing. I don't like the fact that they're doing it, but presuming that they should operate in total transparency just so that the silicon valley "proper thinkers" won't assume the worst is fairly naive, IMO. They believe they…

>I don't like the fact that they're doing it, but presuming that they should operate in total transparency just so that the silicon valley "proper thinkers" won't assume the worst is fairly naive, IMO. They believe they're fighting a critical intelligence war, and secrecy is an integral and necessary part of that battle.

This would be a much more sensible argument if they weren't going around outright coercing Silicon Valley's tech companies into becoming their tools.

If the NSA wants to spy on everyone, they should do it the hard way!

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#280

Post by eli_gottlieb »

adventured wrote: post #103
jumby wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must live in a utopia where there are no evil-doers.

The great big threatening evil doers? You're more likely to die by lightning strike than terrorism. You mean the police right? They kill drastically more innocent civilians every year in America than terrorists do. And that has been true on average for decades. You mean automobiles? Drunk driving? Diabetes and heart disease from high fructose corn syrup and smoking? Yeah, it's the evil doers that we should be giving…

And then let's not forget the number of people dying of treatable diseases they can't pay to survive!
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