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FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

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Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#131

Post by sheepleherd »

omginternets wrote: post #127
sheepleherd wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You (and everybody else) don't understand what I mean because you haven't thought about it as much as I have. By what principle do you think districts should be drawn--they must be redrawn due to shifting population--so do you intend to draw exaggerated patterns to spread out minority opinions, or to clump them together? Or are you suggesting that you flip coins topologically? What if flipping coins results in a sala…

I think people are reacting to your tone. In terms of content you may well have a point: is the drawing of district lines sensible in the first place?

False. My "most parent" comment attracted downvotes well before any of my other comments. I went to edit it to improve it but I think downvotes turn off the edit button or something (not much time had transpired). So what exactly did you find objectionable about my tone there? My guess is I "Socratically" challenged the firmly held beliefs of pinheads that they are politically and intellectually sophisticated when they are simply not; you should not defend the mob.

In terms of your suggestion about not drawing district lines at all, I can (seriously) see no merit to it at all. That could be because while you could have made an actual argument for your point, instead you simply stated it as I did in my post... I guess according to your comment calculus I should accuse you of not following the tone that we prefer and downvote you?

Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#133

Post by sheepleherd »

newjersey wrote: post #96
JadeNB wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You (and everybody else) don't understand what I mean because you haven't thought about it as much as I have. Even if true, this is surely the least civil way, and one of the least convincing ways, to state the fact. > My point is, there IS NO RIGHT ANSWER. There is only your preference. That seems to be a different claim to: > any creation of voting districts is a Gerrymander (which you said above). Two reasons wh…

I've presented a pretty terrible solution before and I'll say it again to illustrate a point. Let's say we make the whole nation into a single constituent district. Now, every voter will cast one vote for one representative and the top N candidates with the most votes win. This is a terrible solution but even this is better than what we have today which i hope goes far too show how bad the system we have today is...…

The situation with supposed gerrymandering is more subtle than you give it credit for, and you therefore are either hopelessly naive about voting constituencies, or you would soon see on inspection that your "impartial system" would utterly fail.

To try to forge a simple example to illustrate it to you (and yes, this is spoonfeeding to an HN audience who refuses to do the work themselves when downvoting is so much simpler): people interact with their neighbors and they squabble with their neighbors and there are many more factions on a myriad of issues than even a multiparty system can allow for. But neighbors unite over many issues, like "we don't want a sewage treatment plant here", or "we need more parking".

If you have a "system" that does not give local people a loud voice on local issues, your system will be overturned in favor of one that does. For instance, the American Revolution and the Brexit are the same basic issue: people far away should not be deciding our local affairs.

So now that your system's been overturned, we have a system of local districts... but local districts are filled with people who do not agree on all issues...

It's all gerrymandering, there is no such thing as not gerrymandering, including in the mathematically degenerate cases of Athenian (or New England town meeting) democracies. Factorial of 0 has to be 1, because...because... "gerrymander"

Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#134

Post by Ntrails »

ridgeguy wrote: post #117
wallace_f wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, I've also learned the same in the last year. My interactions with people after reaching adulthood have also taught me that people have different inclinations, ethics, intentions and internal reward systems. Some people gain satisfaction by helping others, or doing 'good;' while some others, gain satisfaction from hurting others, or feeling superior to them. Unfortunately I've met a lot of terrible peop…

If you consider the incentives and selection filters that operated on those who successfully sought elected office, it's a little discouraging. We might do better drafting from a pool of otherwise qualified people who really don't want the job!

There was a cool article on why in many cases random selection is better than human choice https://aeon.co/essays/if-you-can-t-choose-wisely-choose-ran...

I've just never really solved how to apply it to politics. I've long felt that if you're going to have 2 "houses", one ought to be appointed by ballot as a check/balance on the elected members (a variation of hereditary peers in many ways but without the same bias).

Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#135

Post by sheepleherd »

Aelinsaar wrote: post #101
sheepleherd wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You (and everybody else) don't understand what I mean because you haven't thought about it as much as I have. By what principle do you think districts should be drawn--they must be redrawn due to shifting population--so do you intend to draw exaggerated patterns to spread out minority opinions, or to clump them together? Or are you suggesting that you flip coins topologically? What if flipping coins results in a sala…

Surely believing that you, of all other people (many billions of them!) only you have "thought about it" enough? That strikes me as a delusional belief to hold.

first of all, oh come off it, when I said everybody else, I meant "everybody else here on HN who is downvoting me and not balanced by upvoters in my corner, and since anybody can upvote and only a small faction can downvote, we are talking a serious tilt". (In a microcosm of the larger gerrymander debate, your studied obtuseness on this issue is forcing me to spill a lot of words to explain a notion that should be obvious to you, but I apparently am the only one amongst you and me who is thinking about that.)

But to your point(less), considering the world population, I've looked, I've googled the gerrymander topic hard; and I've tried to engage the wikipedia "talk" community in hopes of finding birds of a feather, people actively interested in the issue. (You give it a try, I am the only one saying it... Oh wait, it's much easier for you to avoid learning anything and just to drop a tart comment.)

I am certain that many others (still a tiny minority of the planet) have noticed that when you draw district boundaries that you must inherently advantage some and disadvantage others; a subset of those notice more sophisticated political things about it, and a tiny subset probably notice that it is a deeper d(N-color geographic map projection onto a hyperdimensional Venn diagram problem)/dt.

But that notion does not filter out. The concept of a "gerrymander" is very dear to the hearts of relatively sophisticated people (unsophisticated people don't know the word). I imagine it's not taught properly in political science curricula.

My claim is, there is no way to draw legislative districts that is not a gerrymander (unless you adopt the non-standard definition that a gerrymander is any drawing that is not geometrically compact/convex)

The original Gerrymander political cartoon: it was a clever rhetorical point, I'm in favor of cleverness and rhetorical flourish.

Further noticing that all districting is political, ideological, or doomed to be rejected by an outraged populatce, I don't know how clever that is, but I can't find anybody other than me who has noticed it and stands up and says it.

Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#136

Post by 794CD01 »

tn13 wrote: post #60
csense wrote: post #43

A couple decades ago when the government wanted to get civil forfeiture powers, they said it was only going to be for the worst organized crime bosses and drug lords. Then within the last few years, a black kid who takes his life savings -- $10,000 cash -- and moves across the country to start a new life is (apparently entirely legally) relieved of it by two police officers and has no means to get it back, despite ne…

Government can not be trusted. Something that the founding fathers and understood and warned centuries ago despite their own inherent flaws. Individual liberty is something that we need to defend actively from the government and that can not happen unless we take a diametrically opposite stance and do not concede even and inch of ground. Example: People who supported civil forfeiture essentially thought that its okay…

The founding fathers also "understood" that negroes were subhuman and women existed solely to bear children. There is no reason to base modern decisions on 250-year-old morals.

Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#137

Post by wallace_f »

ridgeguy wrote: post #117
wallace_f wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, I've also learned the same in the last year. My interactions with people after reaching adulthood have also taught me that people have different inclinations, ethics, intentions and internal reward systems. Some people gain satisfaction by helping others, or doing 'good;' while some others, gain satisfaction from hurting others, or feeling superior to them. Unfortunately I've met a lot of terrible peop…

If you consider the incentives and selection filters that operated on those who successfully sought elected office, it's a little discouraging. We might do better drafting from a pool of otherwise qualified people who really don't want the job!

It does seem to be the case that someone who doesn't really want the job, but is otherwise qualified, is the best person for it in this case. It seems to me to be very likely that this is true for both politicians, as well as LEO, including the FBI, CIA, and probably all other three letter agencies as well.

Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#138

Post by junto »

c_c_c wrote: post #109
sailfast wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every few weeks I remind myself that J. Edgar Hoover retired as director of the FBI in 1972 after running the organization for 48 years. Somebody that fundamental to the formation of an organization creates a culture.

Not relevant to your point, but Hoover never retired. He died in office.

With that much power, he was only ever going to leave in a coffin.

Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#139

Post by oh_sigh »

Sacho wrote: post #121
oh_sigh wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there were people lining up to defend him pro bono because he was a national case...

We've gone from "the kid is actually guilty", to "well if the kid is innocent it would be trivial to get his money back", to "well if the kid is innocent it's not trivial to get his money back but because it was a national case there's bound to be someone willing to do the work for him out of altruism". While these may all be true, on your way to be right you've discarded everyone who doesn't get media spotlight, is…

I think the problem is that you are arguing whether the law should exist or not - I was only arguing that, given that the law exists, it is possible to reacquire your money if it was legally earned.

Re: FBI wants access to browser history without a warrant in terrorism, spy cases

#140

Post by thomasthomas »

tn13 wrote: post #60
csense wrote: post #43

A couple decades ago when the government wanted to get civil forfeiture powers, they said it was only going to be for the worst organized crime bosses and drug lords. Then within the last few years, a black kid who takes his life savings -- $10,000 cash -- and moves across the country to start a new life is (apparently entirely legally) relieved of it by two police officers and has no means to get it back, despite ne…

Government can not be trusted. Something that the founding fathers and understood and warned centuries ago despite their own inherent flaws. Individual liberty is something that we need to defend actively from the government and that can not happen unless we take a diametrically opposite stance and do not concede even and inch of ground. Example: People who supported civil forfeiture essentially thought that its okay…

I agree with you but I would challenge the assumption lower taxes means less revenue
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