Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#71

Post by clarkmoody » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

ferdo wrote: post #63

I've never trusted the government or the internet. I trust my family and friends. "...the three aims of the tyrant. These are, (1) the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; (2) the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another; and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; the…

"…and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations…"

In my view, the current government abuses and corruption are most apparent in the surveillance state but extend well into its other functions: industry regulation, social welfare programs, military-industrial spending, national security, judicial system, public education, etc.

We need to recall that our government exists to "secure [the] rights" that people have regardless of the existence of government. We should not trust government, as a general rule.

People all across the political spectrum must evaluate their expectations of government through the lens of the NSA revelations, since I believe they indicate the depth and breadth of the corruption of the entire system.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#72

Post by pvdm » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 6:49 PM UTC

junto wrote: post #33

The question is then; in a two party system where both offer the blue pill, who the hell do you vote for? Neither Democrats nor Republicans will change this. Due to the way that the political system works, a third party isn't possible. In the UK we have a Conservative/Liberal coalition, where traditionally Liberals were strong privacy advocates, but now turn a blind eye to the massive Orwellian/Huxley-esque society g…

Noam Chomsky has written about this for decades. The purpose of the entire "political framework" is for "Manufacturing Consent".

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#73

Post by graedus » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 6:51 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #70

graedus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't deny many such examples exist, but you can't deny that the MSM is nevertheless an influence on large swaths of Americans. Even those that are not so gullible as to accept what they hear on the news as fact unquestioningly, may be influenced more subtly by the range of opinions presented and how they are portrayed. So maybe they invite three guests on to discuss a topic like privacy: one a DoD official, one fr…

Your points are well-taken, but in a democracy it's a hard argument to make to say: "people don't really think what they think they think because of the media." > So how do we get people to place a higher value on, say, their liberties and human rights instead of fear of the spectre of terrorism? Is it possible? I think people do care about their liberties and human rights, but they do so in concrete ways. I think yo…

> Your points are well-taken, but in a democracy it's a hard argument to make to say: "people don't really think what they think they think because of the media."

It's not that hard an argument -- there have been probably hundreds of studies on the influence of media on people's opinions and resulting actions. Why do you think advertising is a nearly half-trillion dollar industry worldwide? It's a significant chunk of GDP in the US and UK, for example, and not without reason: advertising through various media consistently makes a measurable impact on the buying patterns of consumers, and it's not exactly a huge leap to apply this to politics[0].

That point aside, I appreciate the insight, and I think you're on the right track as far as thinking about how to make the issues more concrete to people in a personal way.

The other, perhaps over-broad human nature question is how to get people care about this shit even if it truly only affects "others" - people of other countries, other social classes, other races and other religions. There are middle-aged, upper class voting people, white ones even, who care deeply that their government detains and tortures mulsim men in secret and not-so-secret prisons without trial, who care if activists are targeted for intimidation or treated similarly to terrorists, who can look at history and see that pervasive surveillance without meaningful oversight is always, always abused at some point and who aren't so scared of terrorism that they vote all their own rights away in order to feel safe. That is a much harder battle.

[0] http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market...

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#74

Post by korethr » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #41

jseliger wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is then; in a two party system where both offer the blue pill, who the hell do you vote for? Greens or libertarians, which I have been doing for a long time. Real change starts at the ballot box.

The problem with "Real change starts at X" statements is that they necessarily handwave around the circularity of the problems we face. We can't get better policies until we elect better parties, but we can't elect better parties until we address campaign finance and fix the electoral system, but we can't address campaign finance and fix the electoral system until we elect better parties willing to pass better polici…

Indeed, bootstrapping is a tricky problem, and in more fields than just computers and tech. But bootstrapping is not an impossible problem to solve. Machinists and toolmakers first build crude tools, which in turn allow them to build better tools than they could with just their bare hands and wit. A hacker trying to write a self-hosting compiler in a high level language first starts with another compiler or another language to build the first iteration of his compiler. The Linux kernel can use an initramfs to set up a userspace and run the tools needed to...set up userspace.

So bootstrapping is not an impossible problem to solve. What makes politics different that an improvement in politics can't be bootstrapped?

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#75

Post by harryh » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 7:42 PM UTC

graedus wrote: post #73

rayiner wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your points are well-taken, but in a democracy it's a hard argument to make to say: "people don't really think what they think they think because of the media." > So how do we get people to place a higher value on, say, their liberties and human rights instead of fear of the spectre of terrorism? Is it possible? I think people do care about their liberties and human rights, but they do so in concrete ways. I think yo…

> Your points are well-taken, but in a democracy it's a hard argument to make to say: "people don't really think what they think they think because of the media." It's not that hard an argument -- there have been probably hundreds of studies on the influence of media on people's opinions and resulting actions. Why do you think advertising is a nearly half-trillion dollar industry worldwide? It's a significant chunk o…

> see that pervasive surveillance without meaningful oversight is always, always abused at some point

I think that being more specific and using more examples would help a lot here. It's one thing to say "this will be abused" in some sort of abstract way. It's another to point to specific detailed examples of abuse (either here or in other similar societies).

I'll take it as a given at this point that a bunch of my emails and phone calls are sitting on an NSA hard drive somewhere. How is that going to come back to haunt me?

Keep in mind that the guys on the other side of the argument are using this as a specific negative outcome: http://derecjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Twin-Towers...

That's your competition.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#76

Post by ferdo » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 7:53 PM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #71

ferdo wrote: post #63

I've never trusted the government or the internet. I trust my family and friends. "...the three aims of the tyrant. These are, (1) the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; (2) the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another; and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; the…

"…and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations…" In my view, the current government abuses and corruption are most apparent in the surveillance state but extend well into its other functions: industry regulation, social welfa…

> We should not trust government, as a general rule.

100% agreement. Just as a personal operating default, I also tend to distrust people that tell me I should put more trust in government. Trust belongs in society and business, not in politicians and bureaucrats.

BTW, I sent you some btc once upon a time. I love your site/service.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#77

Post by clarkmoody » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 8:22 PM UTC

ferdo wrote: post #76

clarkmoody wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"…and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations…" In my view, the current government abuses and corruption are most apparent in the surveillance state but extend well into its other functions: industry regulation, social welfa…

> We should not trust government, as a general rule. 100% agreement. Just as a personal operating default, I also tend to distrust people that tell me I should put more trust in government. Trust belongs in society and business, not in politicians and bureaucrats. BTW, I sent you some btc once upon a time. I love your site/service.

Much appreciated :-)

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#78

Post by king_jester » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #61

graedus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neither party cares about the issue because the people don't care And why don't the people care? Corporate-owned media has a huge amount of influence on what people care about. But in the never ending search for ever increasing profits that is built into their structure by law, they, like the major political parties are "just giving people what they want" too by chasing ratings in order to gain larger market share…

> And why don't the people care? Corporate-owned media has a huge amount of influence on what people care about. Again, I go back to my mom because she's the greatest insight I have into the typical voter. My mom doesn't watch the news. Her opinions are her own. She places a high value on social order, trusts the government, and assumes that the government wouldn't use any information they get from her e-mails to hur…

> She places a high value on social order, trusts the government, and assumes that the government wouldn't use any information they get from her e-mails to hurt her. And you know what? She's right. They won't. The government pretty much exists to protect middle-aged, upper middle class women like my mom. The status quo in this regard is consistent with her interests. She doesn't need a "corporate-owned media" to make her think that way.

This is very important and a strong reason why (some) people are OK with that kind of government. They have trust in the system because the system generally does protect their interests over the interests of other people.

But not everyone fits into that class and status. There are whole classes of people whose daily experience is that of gov't at various levels seeking to cause them harm, physically, emotionally, and economically. Political discourse and media representation does not include those people (arguably on purpose) and those people are not the focus of efforts to change how are society is broken and fails to provide prosperity for all its citizens. So long as there are people willing to have comfort and success off of the backs and lives of others, representative democracy has a huge failing point.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#79

Post by e3pi » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 8:58 PM UTC

"Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet"

Interesting title, Bruce.

Is this your first `walking in on little kitten feet', getting your tippy-toe wet, capitulating inverted ClapperSpeak, or `Shark Jump' or `Breaking Bad'? Too much recent popularity, and now that you're a street celebrity doyen, you don't want to stampede the restless herd?

You entitle this as a CNN 6 O'clock News headline, sanitized and pleasantly amilorating our bellowing constant surveillance disgruntlement into a Family Hour's "Group hug everyone, let's sing Kumbaya, and `Restore Trust'."

Please, not you too Bruce. Not now.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#80

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 8:58 PM UTC

Welcome to the press briefing today. Our first agenda item is to discuss where the drones will attack...

Schneier must not mean that when he talks about coming clean.

Anyone who has been betrayed by a friend or lover can regain trust in that person somehow, but that's not the same as regaining trust in a group of people. I don't trust large groups, and how does a whole group (or government) start down the path of regaining trust anyway? I agree with Mr. Schneier, but balancing power seems closer to the solution than what he said about the government starting down a path, coming clean and other things that individuals do better than groups.