11–20 of 32 posts
Leaving aside the meat of the article, I found this quote interesting: """ Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """ Does anyone else find this to be the case too?…
It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous.
I'm deeply disappointed :(
Currently active discussion going on in prior submission of same link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852246
But if you can get past Andreesen's unfortunate choice of framing, this story is useful as an indicator of how captive we are to our filter bubbles. The valence of Andreesen's feelings about Snowden isn't at all weird. Lots of people share the perspective that Snowden is doing more harm than good, but people on HN seem to have a hard time believing that.
† Which I doubt; it's too interesting, and the most boring narrative always wins.
Leaving aside the meat of the article, I found this quote interesting: """ Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """ Does anyone else find this to be the case too?…
Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of whether or not these activities are moral and something we should accept in our society, but at least the second reply doesn't actively shut down the conversation. Whereas before they could claim that we are being paranoid and there would be no real comeback to that, and thus our points could be safely dismissed, at least now one can reply "No we shouldn't be surprised, and now let's discuss whether or not it is something that should continue."
I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world were the exact people talking about how not torturing was what separated our good hearted security agents from those savages employed by "evil empires" such as Russia or China.
At the end of day, I am heartened because now at least the cards are on the table and these activities can't just be denied as the figments of paranoid imaginations. The conversation is moving along a bit, however slowly.
What an idiotic, capitalistic claim. So Andreeson calls him a traitor because "business is now harder." Huh? Nevermind invasion of privacy and injustice.
Leaving aside the meat of the article, I found this quote interesting: """ Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """ Does anyone else find this to be the case too?…
Why are people so shocked and upset about the NSA, when they could have expressed the same outrage at the PATRIOT act, which has been around for a decade, and which is responsible for the legality of much of the NSA's recent history? The NSA is a spy agency. That's what they do. They're using every legal avenue they have to collect as much information as possible. To assume that they're doing anything less than everything possible within legal limits is naive.
It's always surprising when one discovers the Ellisons and the Andreessens of the world. Luckily their type is a rare exception in the Valley though.
Leaving aside the meat of the article, I found this quote interesting: """ Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """ Does anyone else find this to be the case too?…
This is now the bog standard reply of the closet fascists who support the NSA and their rampant spying. They've had to switch to this response because their previous response "You're just being paranoid", has been utterly blown apart by the Snowden revelations and thank god for that. Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of whether or not these activities are moral and something we s…
Yea man, those "closet fascists and their support of the NSA" and their statements in no uncertain terms that the NSA always been despicable. So let me get this straight: between 1) people who have always been fine with the NSA until a couple mos ago and 2) people who have always been disgusted by them and see this as an (unsurprising) affirmation of that disgust: the LATTER are closet fascists? You realize that even someone like rms fits directly into your characterization of "closet fascist", right? That should help you understand how stupid your conclusion is.
Your core issue is that you're conflating "hey man this has happened for ages and it's just how the world works" with "this has happened for ages, where the fuck have you been, people who are just deciding to get mad now that it's in fashion?". The former is definitely a bog-standard apologist tactic (though I'd argue that it's been around for a lot longer than just Snowden; it's basically the neo-con anthem, and neocons aren't exactly in the "closet"), but the latter couldn't be more different from apologia.
> I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world
Again, you're mixing up two different views. "People who actually paid attention before it was fashionable" doesn't consist only of the people defending this bullshit, it also consists of plenty of people that were protesting it. I know it makes you feel better about ignoring this for so long to pretend that the only people paying attention were apologists, but that's just flat-out, 100% wrong.