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Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

reuters.com

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Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#11

Post by evanlivingston »

buvanshak wrote: post #8
cmurf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all. It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency. No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And p…

> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious s…

Power corrupts.

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#12

Post by [deleted] »

buvanshak wrote: post #8
cmurf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all. It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency. No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And p…

> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious s…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#13

Post by golergka »

buvanshak wrote: post #8
cmurf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all. It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency. No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And p…

> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious s…

The most horrible and bloody dictators had only the best intentions in mind. The most bloody and horrible ideology in the world – communism – was driven by idealists.

I'll always take a corrupt politician over a benevolent dictator.

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#14

Post by cmurf »

buvanshak wrote: post #8
cmurf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all. It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency. No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And p…

> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious s…

No.

Read Hobbes' Leviathan, it discusses this. A prerequisite for success the sovereign must establish a state religion, subjects comply or are executed.

And then John Locke, with emphasis on consent of the governed.

And why not the Catholic Church? The pope is essentially what you describe but they have been many bad Popes. Nevertheless as an institution it endures, with and without justice.

A sovereign who is completely selfless would not be a human. So you're necessarily searching for deities or an off worlder. And when they're done? Who then? Sounds chaotic and capricious.

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#15

Post by duncan_bayne »

mtgx wrote: post #7

I was afraid this was going to happen, after Microsoft became one of the primary supporters of the CLOUD Act recently. https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/03/21/microso... It's also the second time in the last few months that Microsoft has settled with the government instead of pushing forward the privacy fight. The government pinky-promised that it wouldn't abuse the gag orders anymore, and that's all it…

> So I guess we can no longer trust Microsoft

Microsoft has not been trustworthy since the mid 90s, at the latest.

http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#16

Post by spc476 »

buvanshak wrote: post #8
cmurf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a combination of corporate money in politics, and a nation of spectators, not citizens. The citizens have yielded their participation and power to corporations, on purpose, and many are proud that they've done this, if they care at all. It's only hindsight being 20/20 that they go, oh fuck that was a bad idea, how did we get here? Complacency. No one said democracy was easy. It requires constant vigilance. And p…

> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious s…

CGP Grey did a video about political power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Short answer: your idea probably won't last long.

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#17

Post by jacobush »

tdhoot wrote: post #9
craigc wrote: post #4

It is really sad and disturbing to me how little coverage the CLOUD act has gotten. A law was passed quietly that was snuck into page 2,201 of an unrelated spending/budget bill just before Congress voted on it to allow warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen, and not one mainstream media source has written about it. It was signed into law by Trump just a couple days later…

> warrantless surveillance by foreign governments and law enforcement on any US citizen Source? I only see that it allows foreign governments to get information on their own citizens, even if that information is stored on US soil.

If one or two (million) US citizens data happen to get included, well that’s unfortunate. It’s not against the law in those countries. Purely by coincidence, these other countries can then notify the US government if they see something of interest, some dirt on a US citizen. Now there is something to be concerned about and the US government has cause to look more closely. Outsource all unkempt activity!

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#18

Post by buvanshak »

cmurf wrote: post #14
buvanshak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious s…

No. Read Hobbes' Leviathan, it discusses this. A prerequisite for success the sovereign must establish a state religion, subjects comply or are executed. And then John Locke, with emphasis on consent of the governed. And why not the Catholic Church? The pope is essentially what you describe but they have been many bad Popes. Nevertheless as an institution it endures, with and without justice. A sovereign who is compl…

>A sovereign who is completely selfless would not be a human.

All human beings have survival instincts. But we manages to build soldiers that are willing to risk their lives for random stuff. Right?

In such way, it might be possible to build, or grow, generations of such people, completely selfless..

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#19

Post by buvanshak »

golergka wrote: post #13
buvanshak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious s…

The most horrible and bloody dictators had only the best intentions in mind. The most bloody and horrible ideology in the world – communism – was driven by idealists. I'll always take a corrupt politician over a benevolent dictator.

>I'll always take a corrupt politician over a benevolent dictator.

Am I wrong in saying that if you have enough resources, corrupt politicians and authorities will let you dictate the affairs under them?

So a dictator, as you say exerciser their power to enforce their own agenda. While a corrupt politician sells them off to the highest bidder, to enforce what ever agenda they have...

The only thing better in that scenario is that the "highest bidder" may have an incentive to not kill droves of people, since they probably have a business to run, and that often require people..Also, business does not really have an ideology or a philosophy. It just need to grow its profits..

Re: Microsoft calls for dismissal of U.S. Supreme Court privacy fight

#20

Post by acqq »

golergka wrote: post #13
buvanshak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the small problem is they're not benevolent for very long. Would it be possible to appoint a dictator, who has no other incentive other then serve the people. For ex, they ll sever every human relation, cannot own property, will have zero privacy, cannot reproduce and have children etc. But they ll be held to the highest honor and their every needs taken care of... In short, something like the life of a religious s…

The most horrible and bloody dictators had only the best intentions in mind. The most bloody and horrible ideology in the world – communism – was driven by idealists. I'll always take a corrupt politician over a benevolent dictator.

The problem, independent of the ideology, is the quality of “checks and balances” which protect the human and other rights of the citizens.

And as we see, even in the USA as we speak it’s easy to take some rights from the people without too much fuss (just enough distraction).

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