Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum • Hacker News Board

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#211

Post by Dirlewanger » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:00 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #180

Dirlewanger wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all the smart people are smart enough to see how much of a soul-sucking cluster-fuck politics is. That, and one could argue that if they're put on this earth to live a life of happiness, how could one ever possibly achieve this through a life in politics, knowing what they are getting themselves into?

Ehhh, that's a hand-wringing, self-serving generalization. "We have the answers. We're just not soulless enough to want to go through (and perhaps change, in the process) the effort to supply them and make them help." Platitudes rarely change things.

Whether you think so or not, personal incentives motivate people in their careers, salary being one of the biggest and weightiest. I'm not saying there aren't that many personal incentives to a life of politics, but at face value isn't exactly the most attractive career path.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#212

Post by FireBeyond » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #211

FireBeyond wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhh, that's a hand-wringing, self-serving generalization. "We have the answers. We're just not soulless enough to want to go through (and perhaps change, in the process) the effort to supply them and make them help." Platitudes rarely change things.

Whether you think so or not, personal incentives motivate people in their careers, salary being one of the biggest and weightiest. I'm not saying there aren't that many personal incentives to a life of politics, but at face value isn't exactly the most attractive career path.

Politics isn't just about being smart, though. It's about being 'charming' (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse), charismatic, a good communicator (notwithstanding the teams of people behind the scenes to help with this).

I get that it's not everyone's desired path (it's certainly not mine), I just think that saying "many of us are smart enough to have the answers, we just choose not to get involved in politics" is perhaps an... underestimation... of the complexity of some of society's problems.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#213

Post by anonbanker » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 6:33 PM UTC

if you don't assume that Reddit is under pervasive surveillance, you are making a huge mistake.

you should probably assume the same of HN, or most things that don't live on I2P or Freenet.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#214

Post by anonbanker » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 6:36 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #162

DanBC wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember weev from any Usenet groups I used. I do remember hipcrime sporges.

he was in the gnaa

GNAA was the /. era, friend. Usenet was Eternal Septembered by then.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#215

Post by ianstallings » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #209

ianstallings wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't apply here and you know it. This is the US justice system and I get tired of the red herring bullshit.

The US law where homosexuals were locked in cages less than 15 years ago, where their are still homosexuals in cages and under other punishments for actions that would have been legal if they had been heterosexuals (one example a child molester in Georgia who would have been protected under Romeo and Juliet laws had the young party been a girl instead of a boy). We still have a justice system where owning certain pla…

Listen we are talking about two different things and that's my point. I don't care about moral judgements. This is about reality - if there is a law on the books, right or wrong, and you knowingly break that law, will you be surprised when law enforcement comes after you? This is about personal responsibility. You make a decision and you pay the consequences, right or wrong.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#216

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 7:16 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #208

dragonwriter wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The level of taxation was not a central concern of the founders, nor was the US system any more decentralized than, say, the Holy Roman Empire.

States rights, separation of justice, executive, and legislative branch, equal senators per state, congress numbers by population, no central bank, right to bear arms, jury of your peers... These are all decentralization of power. The Roman empire had an emperor.

The Holy Roman Empire is a different institution than the Roman Empire; it had an official with the title "emporer" but it also featured rather extreme decentralization of power. And it existed at the same time as the early US. In some respects, it was the direct model for the decentralization in the US system.

Also, "no central bank" wasn't domething that made the US decentralized compared to other contemporary systems. First, because central banks were extremely rare at the time, and second because the central banks of the time, and most modern ones, are a means of transferring power out of the government to private capitalists, so they further decentralize government power.

Neither was retaining the British jury system.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#217

Post by undersuit » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 9:31 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #191

wmf wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Federalist Papers were published pseudonymously in 1787. I don't think people are asking for special privileges for the Internet.

We're the Federalist Papers advocating/admitting to illegal activity?

Yes? Here are a number of essays that lay out the issues with the current government and ways to make a better government written by a number of influential U.S. figures during the war that led to the U.S. independence from Britain.

You think the British weren't concerned at all about who was writing this propaganda and weren't willing to violate the "rights" of their colonists... because I think the authors were quite concerned.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#218

Post by Steko » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

undersuit wrote: post #217

Steko wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're the Federalist Papers advocating/admitting to illegal activity?

Yes? Here are a number of essays that lay out the issues with the current government and ways to make a better government written by a number of influential U.S. figures during the war that led to the U.S. independence from Britain. You think the British weren't concerned at all about who was writing this propaganda and weren't willing to violate the "rights" of their colonists... because I think the authors were qui…

The British recognized US independence in 1783; Federalist Papers published in 1787-88.

Regardless if the Federalist Papers had bragged about smuggling a subsequent investigation would have compelled printers etc to name the authors.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#219

Post by themgt » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 4:06 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #184

FireBeyond wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things aren't special "because ... Internet!". If something is done in public, it's done in public. If you'd face consequences for it on the street, why shouldn't you online? I can't see any particular level of logic than "we should be able to get away with shit online". Note, for emphasis, that this is entirely an aside to the subject of legalization, as I'm actually much more pro-legalization than anything else.

The Federalist Papers were published pseudonymously in 1787. I don't think people are asking for special privileges for the Internet.

Just to correct the downthread derail, I'm guessing you were confusing this with Common Sense, Thomas Paine's anonymously published 1776 pamphlet calling for rebellion against Britain.

Re: Feds Demand Reddit Identify Users of a Dark-Web Drug Forum

#220

Post by undersuit » Wed, Apr 01, 2015, 6:35 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #218

undersuit wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? Here are a number of essays that lay out the issues with the current government and ways to make a better government written by a number of influential U.S. figures during the war that led to the U.S. independence from Britain. You think the British weren't concerned at all about who was writing this propaganda and weren't willing to violate the "rights" of their colonists... because I think the authors were qui…

The British recognized US independence in 1783; Federalist Papers published in 1787-88. Regardless if the Federalist Papers had bragged about smuggling a subsequent investigation would have compelled printers etc to name the authors.

Yes I seem to have added a decade somewhere...