Forced Exposure • Hacker News Board

Re: Forced Exposure

#361

Post by samstave » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:13 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #326

samstave wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US Government has historically listened to the pressures of its citizenry, and changed While they may have changed tactics and methods they did not stop the nefarious activity. I think you're naive to think that protesting the USGs actions have led them to stop any of it - actually it has only led to to their attempt to obfuscate their actions. Do you recall when "The office of total information awareness" was r…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship Does the US Government do this anymore? No, it doesn't. Period. Historical facts fight against your argument. The US Government has permanently given up powers to respect the privacy of citizens. I can come up with more historic examples if you wish.

>Does the US Government do this anymore? No, it doesn't. Period.

Bullshit.

https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=us+...

Re: Forced Exposure

#362

Post by crusso » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:15 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #332

samstave wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we don't we eye-to-eye: I find your comment ridiculous. Does the government do what exactly? You are aware they are slurping 100% of digital communications? In light of what has been confirmed by Snowden's efforts - I can't take your comment seriously.

Office of Censorship would delete and manipulate documents to aid in the war propaganda effort in the 1940s. Its pretty different than what is going on today.

You're confusing the walking back of an extreme overstep with a fundamental change in direction.

You can't cherry pick a couple of examples of where extreme power grabs were curtailed and say, "See, the government is giving up power!" You're looking at local down trends in an overall upward curve and declaring the whole thing to have a negative slope.

In order to make your case, you'd need to start with the Constitution and the strict limits that it placed on the Federal government and map that to the authority it exercises today. The trend is in the opposite direction you're thinking of.

Re: Forced Exposure

#363

Post by fmax30 » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:18 PM UTC

You cannot just quit internet, you just can-not. Aren't there any secure email providers like lavabit in Europe or Asia .

Whenever I think about NSA now , in a corner of my mind , I see Dan Brown Saying, " I told you so". With a copy of Digital fortress (his book about NSA) in his hand.

Re: Forced Exposure

#364

Post by dragontamer » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:20 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #362

dragontamer wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office of Censorship would delete and manipulate documents to aid in the war propaganda effort in the 1940s. Its pretty different than what is going on today.

You're confusing the walking back of an extreme overstep with a fundamental change in direction. You can't cherry pick a couple of examples of where extreme power grabs were curtailed and say, "See, the government is giving up power!" You're looking at local down trends in an overall upward curve and declaring the whole thing to have a negative slope. In order to make your case, you'd need to start with the Constitut…

Sure. I'll go back to the Constitution.

* Blacks can't vote. * Women can't vote. * Corporations were straight up illegal unless CONGRESS approved of them first!

Oh my, yes, I'd much rather live in 1790s America than today.

Get your history straight boy.

Re: Forced Exposure

#365

Post by samstave » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:20 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #341

md224 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> History of the US is a sobering example, of the Government constantly giving up powers in favor of its citizens. Need I remind people of the Office of Censorship in 1940s, where Government agents read every single mail that was going across the mail system? Need I remind people of COINTELPRO in 1960s, the program the FBI used to spy on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr? Imagine you're in a relationship with someo…

Governments are composed of people. The people who ran the government in the 1940s no longer did by 1960s... and the people who ran the government in the 1960s no longer do today. Your example is fallacious to begin with, because you assume a single entity is responsible for PRISM, Office of Censorship, and COINTELPRO. No, they are different: different governments of different eras... facing different problems even.…

>Governments are composed of people. The people who ran the government in the 1940s no longer did by 1960s... and the people who ran the government in the 1960s no longer do today.

No, governments are composed of institutionalized sets of behaviours and response guidlines; colloquially known as "Laws" - the architecture of governance.

The "people" in these organizations are agents of these systems. They behave exactly how the institutionalized archetypes are designed to make them behave.

You're perpetuating the same illusion that "elections" perpetuate: "This human, named 'Obama' will change everything!"

No he wont. He will fall into the role and archetype of the office of the president.

Re: Forced Exposure

#366

Post by nkurz » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:22 PM UTC

teraflop wrote: post #179

nkurz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but is it a good impulse? http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html

I'm not sure what point you're trying to (obliquely) make, but the fact that you're bringing up that essay in response to someone correcting an incorrect pronoun makes me suspect you've grossly misunderstood it.

Hofstatder's paper doesn't just add linguistic specifiers for race, it also removes their significance for sexual differentiation. Hofstatder demonstrates the insidious effect of forcing the use of sex specific terms in cases where sex is not relevant.

In Hoftstadter's scenario, assume that that PJ had been misidentified as the "author" of the piece. Would it be a good impulse to correct the mistake and point out that she is actually an "authoroon"? I take Hofstadter to be arguing that rather than being more precise with our he's and she's, we need to move beyond them.

Re: Forced Exposure

#367

Post by crusso » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:24 PM UTC

brianpgordon wrote: post #360

crusso wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bam! ... and there you demonstrated exactly how they fool you. You're thinking about the social programs themselves - the bait or the distraction. I'm talking about governmental power: the power to control vast amounts of money, the power to reward your friends and relatives, the power to snoop on your innocent citizens and punish your enemies through the force of law and perhaps physical violence. They offer you tri…

"Doing good things is how they get you! They get re-elected by doing good things, and that gives them the voter support to do bad things. Down with good things!"

Promising good things is not equal to "good things". Doing a few good things is really easy when you have shitloads of other peoples' money to work with - but even then, they fail over and over to deliver what they actually promise.

Detroit's city managers promised and did a whole lot of good things, didn't they? They were a regular Santa Claus with the handouts.

Re: Forced Exposure

#368

Post by crusso » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:29 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #364

crusso wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing the walking back of an extreme overstep with a fundamental change in direction. You can't cherry pick a couple of examples of where extreme power grabs were curtailed and say, "See, the government is giving up power!" You're looking at local down trends in an overall upward curve and declaring the whole thing to have a negative slope. In order to make your case, you'd need to start with the Constitut…

Sure. I'll go back to the Constitution. * Blacks can't vote. * Women can't vote. * Corporations were straight up illegal unless CONGRESS approved of them first! Oh my, yes, I'd much rather live in 1790s America than today. Get your history straight boy.

You were saying that ours is a government that gives up its powers for the privacy (sake) of its citizenry.

I pointed out that the statement is incorrect over the long view.

Then you call me "boy". Is that supposed to be racist or just demeaning?

And you throw out some red herrings about voting rights.

Re: Forced Exposure

#369

Post by hyperventilator » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

brianpgordon wrote: post #356

crusso wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are vastly different issues The funny thing is that they aren't. They're all about power. Power given to the few to control the many. Social programs just have that sugary coating that voters like to swallow, but the rotten corruption of power is at the center of all and its effects inevitably dominate.

That's the opposite of what's happening. Money (power) is flowing from the few (the rich) to the many (the poor who actually use government services and social programs).

Having more people on the government dole actually makes the problem worse. We need less government, as little as possible, and more self reliance. Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient be rid of it.

Re: Forced Exposure

#370

Post by logn » Tue, Aug 20, 2013, 8:33 PM UTC

grey-area wrote: post #354

logn wrote: post #211

I posted this in response to the American being groped on travel to India, got -3 karma points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6240211 Now I'm reading this story, in which pj explains her story which was exactly my point from the comment linked above. What's the deal? Anyhow, yes, when the sum of human communication is read by the US government (and other governments and private intel corporations) then it's in…

Since you genuinely don't seem to understand, here's the deal: that story was about someone's personal experience of sexual harassment, and you posted a flippant analogy comparing it to invasion of online privacy. NSA surveillance is a big deal, but nothing to do with sexual harassment.

Thanks, I appreciate your feedback and the other commenter's. It didn't occur to me it would be interpreted as flippant or off-topic. Anyhow, IMO it was a serious and equivalent analogy, as I think pj's story shows. Anyhow, I was just curious, I don't actually care about downvotes.