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Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

greenwald.substack.com

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Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#171

Post by hni »

BuckRogers wrote: post #165
Mikeb85 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You see this at the huge backlash you get, even here among relatively educated and informed commenters, when you dare to suggest that the US bears some responsibility for Ukraine's predicament even though Russia is of course wholly responsible for an unjustifiable invasion. Only 1 country is killing Ukrainians: Russia. There's no US troops massacring and raping Ukrainians... The only thing the US is responsible for…

The lines are clearer than ever for the 21st century. This century has been kicked off with the world struggle between democracy and totalitarianism. People have a choice. Choose the US/Europe/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan, or, the mideast/Russia/China. Many people voted with their feet, migrating to the former nations. Those people have no room to speak as they already voted. I'm missing some players of course, but gener…

> The middle east similarly never asked for democracy.

Oh boy... a blanket statement if ever I saw one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#172

Post by BuckRogers »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #170
BuckRogers wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lines are clearer than ever for the 21st century. This century has been kicked off with the world struggle between democracy and totalitarianism. People have a choice. Choose the US/Europe/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan, or, the mideast/Russia/China. Many people voted with their feet, migrating to the former nations. Those people have no room to speak as they already voted. I'm missing some players of course, but gener…

> I'm missing some players of course, but generally speaking we in the Free World are definitely at a disadvantage and outnumbered by the hordes of people who desire strongmen and dictators. Dunno if I agree with this particular line (but I do agree with most of your post). India is a democracy, there's many quite populous democracies and many who live under dictatorships do desire personal freedom on several levels…

There are those that desire their nation to be a part of the Free World, within nations that aren't currently. Of course. I didn't mean they're all doomed. Freedom fighters for democracy exist everywhere. There's many Russians like Navalny that desire this. He's an example of a Russian patriot, rather than just a nationalist. Had the Russians stood with him in a real way all of these years, tens of thousands of Russian lives and Ukrainian lives would've been saved.

We can't help them. They're a nuclear power. External help with Russian liberation is not possible. It's on them, and I understand how difficult it is. Freedom fighting is not in most Russian's DNA. But they're human, and even after 70 years of Soviet repression, it's still there. I want to have faith.

India is worth keeping an eye on. They are a member of the Pacific equivalent of NATO, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, but it will be interesting to see how devoted they are to a transparent and healthy democracy as opposed to just looking to counter China as a rival.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#173

Post by BuckRogers »

_dw1a wrote: post #163
BuckRogers wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was blame to go around, until Russia invaded Ukraine today and in 2014. Now it's all on them. Otherwise you're saying the woman with the short skirt asked or deserved to be raped and murdered. Which is never true. Mistakes were made, but none of them justify the genocide in Ukraine. Nothing even justified an invasion at all. If you can't see true evil and who the bad guy is, you're definitely part of the proble…

This is a misleading and, frankly, rather disgusting analogy. The sovereignty of an individual, especially over one’s own body, and the sovereignty of a nation are not even near equivalents. And yes, I know that at this time the sovereignty of individual Ukrainians, men and women, is being horribly violated. But this did not need to happen even if the sovereignty of the nation itself was violated. It’s a separate mat…

Sovereignty of a nation is built on the sovereign individuals. Only a free man can build a free nation. It bubbles up, rather than comes from top down.

I'm an "actions, not words" type of guy. Putin claims many things in this world, they're threatened etc. We all know it's a lie. You must watch Russia's actions, not their words. How many times have we learned this? Watch what they've done, not what they say.

You're right, rape is never defensive. Instead what happened here is that Russia has raped Ukraine, and claimed she was going to attack him. That's the reality of it, and it's the only twisted logic on display.

She was also supposedly a Nazi. I'd bet good coin there's more actual Neo-Nazis in Russia than Ukraine though, just based on sheer population alone.

Not that Nazism actually gives Putin any pause.[0]

[0]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/08/russia-sen...

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#174

Post by pavlov »

_dw1a wrote: post #163
BuckRogers wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was blame to go around, until Russia invaded Ukraine today and in 2014. Now it's all on them. Otherwise you're saying the woman with the short skirt asked or deserved to be raped and murdered. Which is never true. Mistakes were made, but none of them justify the genocide in Ukraine. Nothing even justified an invasion at all. If you can't see true evil and who the bad guy is, you're definitely part of the proble…

This is a misleading and, frankly, rather disgusting analogy. The sovereignty of an individual, especially over one’s own body, and the sovereignty of a nation are not even near equivalents. And yes, I know that at this time the sovereignty of individual Ukrainians, men and women, is being horribly violated. But this did not need to happen even if the sovereignty of the nation itself was violated. It’s a separate mat…

Rape can be defensive in the rapist’s mind. “My wife smiled at someone else. I need to defend my property and teach her a lesson.”

And this is the same kind of twisted logic that drives the Russian invasion.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#175

Post by colpabar »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #169

National security is the sum total of the individual earned securities of each citizen, including economic, political, social, health, cultural, military and all sorts of security that pertain to the identity we call a nation. What these guys are talking about is something else. They are talking about the security of the security services, their own self interests and the status quo of enmeshed relations between thre…

I have to ask - by "diverse", do you mean "different people from different backgrounds who have different viewpoints"? Or do you mean "people who all think the same way but have different skin colors"?

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#176

Post by edgyquant »

colpabar wrote: post #175
nonrandomstring wrote: post #169

National security is the sum total of the individual earned securities of each citizen, including economic, political, social, health, cultural, military and all sorts of security that pertain to the identity we call a nation. What these guys are talking about is something else. They are talking about the security of the security services, their own self interests and the status quo of enmeshed relations between thre…

I have to ask - by "diverse", do you mean "different people from different backgrounds who have different viewpoints"? Or do you mean "people who all think the same way but have different skin colors"?

Diverse means the people come from different backgrounds.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#177

Post by thesuitonym »

jmyeet wrote: post #131
syrrim wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say that the US is in any way responsible for Ukraine is to deny ukraine agency. They are caught between a lion and a bear. They could reject the aid of the lion, but that would throw them into the hands of the bear. They choose to accept US help in their defense, but that makes them vulnerable to US invasion. This is a choice they made, and they bare the consequences. The US in offering that help might have sough…

> To say that the US is in any way responsible for Ukraine is to deny ukraine agency No, it doesn't. This war has highlighted just how simplistic people are in that someone has to be the bad guy and someone has to be the good guy (hint: the US is always the good guy). Any suggestion that more than one party can bear responsibility or blame invites histrionics about victim-blaming. The US friend zoned Ukraine, basical…

>This war has highlighted just how simplistic people are in that someone has to be the bad guy and someone has to be the good guy

Everyone who has ever said this has gone on to say that the US is the bad guy. And you're always arguing against people who say "Yes, the US is a bully, but that's not important right now."

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#179

Post by ARandomerDude »

jmyeet wrote: post #61

So there are 3 ways the government could influence Big Tech: 1. Infiltration. An agent or asset could be in a position of power to enact desired policies and changes, provide a backdoor or whatever; 2. Jurisdiction. The platform falls under US jurisdiction so is subject to various forms of law enforcement, secret or otherwise. National Security Letters, FISA warrants, pen registers, that sort of thing; and 3. Propaga…

4. Coercion and Corruption. The government tells Big Tech "You're going to do $GOVERNMENT_THING, as well as fund our next campaigns. Cooperate and we'll make you even more wealthy and powerful; refuse and we'll bury you." This is a nefarious combination of all 3 of your points, and I suspect the most common.

Re: Former officials say big tech monopoly power is vital to national security

#180

Post by [deleted] »

pessimizer wrote: post #146
bavell wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like just another low-effort dig at greenwald? He's got haters for sure but they never seem to have substantive arguments... or at least none that I've seen.

Greenwald reply guys are probably the second vilest on the internet after Ilhan Omar reply guys.

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