the real crime is gmail storage limits amirite??? :3
Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
41–50 of 114 posts
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#42Probably worth noting that deliberately aiding the Chinese military is not treason in America right now because America and China aren't at war. It might be other things: unpatriotic, espionage, etc. But not treason itself. Even the Rosenbergs didn't get convicted of treason (America and the Soviet Union were not actually at war. It was illegal to give nuclear secrets to the Soviets, but it wasn't treason.) So genera…
> So generally whenever somebody in America mentions treason, they're being hyperbolic or misleading, Some people simply don't need to understand the distinction between similarly used terms. In the end, prosecutors can file multiple charges but practically pick and choose based on a variety of factors.
> "Some people simply don't need to understand the distinction between similarly used terms."
e.g. [...] or have themselves been mislead
There won't be any treason charges here. Federal prosecutors know that wouldn't work, so they won't bother trying it. Whether or not Thiel knows this, I cannot say.
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To clarify, by stealing I also mean infiltrated by spies that are hired as employees who in turn provide information to foreign governments... Again, this isn't new. This has been happening for decades - just ask Cisco. Wether is treason is one thing, but I'm not arguing it doesn't happen. The radical statement Theil is making here, is that the _executives_ are compromised, and that they _actively_ sabotage the USG…
Why is it easy to believe all tech companies are filled with foreign agents but hard to believe that any of them could rise to senior management? If anything, a desirable goal of getting hired as a foreign agent at one of these companies would be to rise to an executive rank
What Thiel is alleging isn't merely that some VP in Google is leaking secrets. He's suggesting Google leadership has been "thoroughly infiltrated", to the point that Thiel can see the infiltration based only on Google's public behavior.
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#44This part is worth considering: > Thiel, a Facebook Inc. board member, argued that the kind of AI developed by DeepMind, which like Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., should be thought of as a potential “military weapon.” “We’ve been a lot more dishonest about that in Silicon Valley than the nuclear physicists were in the 1940s,” he said in the opening speech at the National Conservatism conference. If one beli…
Isn't he?
I mean, he started his talk[1] out by posing the question "Is Big Tech good for the U.S.?", which frankly seems like a question worth exploring - especially since the reflexive position of most everyone (e.g. those who post on HN) would be in the affirmative, and likely emphatically so. Being contrarian to a fault, I expect that there's something Thiel thinks is under attack here. Be it more broad things like the general fraying of social and civil cohesion through social media use, or more specific things like Google's enabling of the Chinese surveillance apparatus, Thiel at least has a starting point in this argument. I can't find a video so I don't know what he actually said but below are some notes I found (that seem to mostly rehash what he's said in a bunch of other places, so he obviously seems to think it's an effective rhetorical payload).
[1] https://medium.com/@bonniekavoussi/notes-from-peter-thiels-s...
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To clarify, by stealing I also mean infiltrated by spies that are hired as employees who in turn provide information to foreign governments... Again, this isn't new. This has been happening for decades - just ask Cisco. Wether is treason is one thing, but I'm not arguing it doesn't happen. The radical statement Theil is making here, is that the _executives_ are compromised, and that they _actively_ sabotage the USG…
Why is it easy to believe all tech companies are filled with foreign agents but hard to believe that any of them could rise to senior management? If anything, a desirable goal of getting hired as a foreign agent at one of these companies would be to rise to an executive rank
Because Thiel is making the claim, that not only are they senior management, but they are both actively influencing the company from working with the USG as well as transporting, what maybe now Google's most important IP back to China. This would mean either large swaths of Google senior management are complicit or negligent, and that Google has no, or easily defeated safeguards around that IP. If Google had a track record of playing fast and loose with data, I'd more seriously consider his claim. In fact if it was coming from anyone else I'd consider the claim more seriously.
Aside: I'm not downvoting you as you have a fair question - I don't know why you are negative.
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#46Really Thiel's frankly fascistic rhetoric is far more treasonous than even the absurd worst case of "Google gave access to literally all of their technical data to gain market entry". And here he is calling for abusing power to stifle dissent for exercising their rights of who they work with. What they and the nationalist bedwetter coalition forget is that the Military serves the Civilians. Not the other way around.
The whole accusation is recursive bullshit if not fractal bullshit on so many levels. Essentially anything can be considered weaponized. Not only would cars count but when it came out freeze dried food would count as 'weaponized' because of logistical advantages. US government's efforts at promoting cybersecurity have been pretenses to gain power while making it less secure.
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#47This part is worth considering: > Thiel, a Facebook Inc. board member, argued that the kind of AI developed by DeepMind, which like Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., should be thought of as a potential “military weapon.” “We’ve been a lot more dishonest about that in Silicon Valley than the nuclear physicists were in the 1940s,” he said in the opening speech at the National Conservatism conference. If one beli…
Isn't he? I mean, he started his talk[1] out by posing the question "Is Big Tech good for the U.S.?", which frankly seems like a question worth exploring - especially since the reflexive position of most everyone (e.g. those who post on HN) would be in the affirmative, and likely emphatically so. Being contrarian to a fault, I expect that there's something Thiel thinks is under attack here. Be it more broad things li…
I don't think he's really making a point about social cohesion here. It seems like what he's asking is "has the US captured Big Tech well enough to make sure the gains don't leak out to other countries?"
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#48Is this Thiel speaking about treason as a New Zealand citizen or as a US citizen?
He is speaking as Merkel's boy :D
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#49This part is worth considering: > Thiel, a Facebook Inc. board member, argued that the kind of AI developed by DeepMind, which like Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., should be thought of as a potential “military weapon.” “We’ve been a lot more dishonest about that in Silicon Valley than the nuclear physicists were in the 1940s,” he said in the opening speech at the National Conservatism conference. If one beli…
Thiel has switched his allegiance to New Zealand from USA so I don’t understand his talks of treason. He is founder of Plantir which has mission for spying on American citizens and using tech for military without any concerns to ethics whatsoever. This is a guy who bankrupted journalist news media because they dared to publish about him. I am not sure how far Thiel can go to establish himself as one true tech villain.
Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't he? I mean, he started his talk[1] out by posing the question "Is Big Tech good for the U.S.?", which frankly seems like a question worth exploring - especially since the reflexive position of most everyone (e.g. those who post on HN) would be in the affirmative, and likely emphatically so. Being contrarian to a fault, I expect that there's something Thiel thinks is under attack here. Be it more broad things li…
I don't think he's really making a point about social cohesion here. It seems like what he's asking is "has the US captured Big Tech well enough to make sure the gains don't leak out to other countries?"
That's certainly a possibility, yes, though I think he'd index a lot more on explicitly defining what these "gains" actually are.