I may have missed the whooooosh sound accompanying your sarcasm or you missed this report. Which one is it?

you are mistaken. You can (or at least you could) lock customer's phone in many different ways. They went away from that exactly because people want to use local sim card when they are abroad etc and because this does not provide much of an advantage besides pissing people off - if you get a sponsored mobile you are these days using flat rate tariff i.e. you pay per month etc. and calls are 'free'. As you get sponsored mobile usually if you have a contract there is no added benefit for having phone locked - money is flowing exact the same independently of the SIM card that is inside the phone.This is valid for calls and most of SMS contracts. The capped flat rates are different of course as you pay per volume if you exceed some limits but most of business models in telecom need no locking no more.

ever since operators moved away from manual call switching to SW control call setup there were no reason to charge people per call/duration/volume of traffic other than providing reasons for the customers not to overload network with pr0n. Other than that the costs of network are fixed after the network is built and roaming is configured. This is one thing. The other is that the every phone I had so far (and I had a few) had an option to give user control over the network they wanted to use. Some even had lists of operators that were preferred etc. so where is the problem?

maybe the family and friends do not know they are in hands of UK authorities - maybe they even came to those authorities in search of help to find their kin? That this is causing speculation is bad already. Latest when they are sent to prison or set free they will be able to communicate unless of course they will be executed after the sentencing: 'this court finds the defendants innocent and orders their release and for the reasons of national security orders an immediate hanging by their neck until they die'. The odd thing is, it can even be that authorities act in interest of the public as majority of servants of the state probably at least intend to do. We will not know that of course.

Of course that it is so. The question is not whether they want to abuse our rectums but what can we do about that? Considering how difficult it is to get wide enough lasting enough protests it is much more effective to hire some lobbyists - the bad thing is - we already pay those people with our tax money so we would end up paying twice and still being uncertain of the result. What a nice world we live in.

but they are trying.

Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Nobody with a healthy brain can claim that currently used techniques can recognize our thoughts. They can recognize some of our feelings or rather general state of mind and we also have techniques that after some training allow some people that lost their limbs to control the devices that replaced them. These are not very accurate but getting better if one is to believe the media. We started this journey and if that is possible (why should it not be) then we will get there some day. The question is - will this be a shinny day for all of humanity or only for the chosen ones.

Quite frankly I am all for a VR simulation of lesbian act between Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Lopez changing roles on each try of course, but I know better to what this is going to be used first, once we reach any meaningful thought recognition (which is very far away yet). You see I am old enough to know a 'perfect' solution with all whistles and shinny buttons and displays even so appealing as it may be, is useless if some of its aspects are like massive red flags waving in front of me. Especially whenI think about thought police that is already very well established. If this thing is going to be reasonably effective it will be also very dangerous for what is left of our freedoms too. I am not convinced that all the shiny benefits are bigger than costs and losses endured on the way.

My thoughts too. I think it has quite good uses too - people with missing extremities can get a replacement that is controlled well by such devices. I think that Mr Hawking would appreciate development in this area very much. Judging on how many problems male-female interactions are causing I think that a bit more sophisticated device helping to distinguish between 'ooohhh no no no' meaning 'please continue' or 'f.off or I call the police'. This said I must admit that knowing that somebody can evaluate your feelings if not thoughts may be spooky and may also be not for your benefit - I am thinking here about greedy corporations, criminals - normal and those in government, spying agencies, insurance companies (which are already not insurance companies but another tax authority with some limited utility attached to it) etc.

Maybe it is good that thought reading will not be very easy - Thinking processes are probably to dispersed and variable for the machines so that they would have to train even more and individually per brain. Development in this area gives us a little time to investigate the possible consequences for our society and what we think is beneficial. I am rather pessimistic on what will happen however. The hysteric 'think abut the children' crowd combined with 'cut his arm and perforate his anus - tough on crime' crowd together with general brainlessness of common folk will lead us there without preparation but with full speed - as the members of the dominating species do.

I find this funny. Not that people are treated like objects but your statement because it reminded me of a book I read few years back: 'London Hanged'. What was described there was the cycle of recurring violence in London (not sure anymore 16. or 17. century):

1. industry (cloth making or clockwork making etc) just developing, new skilled workers well paid
2. industry well established, workers paid less and less as methods are established and new less skilled workers needed.
3. riots, army on the streets, the particular industry regulated, better minimum conditions secured
4. the industry off-shores big chunk of work to the Netherlands
5. new blossoming industry is being developed - go to step 1 above

The most visible part were riots and there were times in London where these were happening with tiring regularity approx every 20y or so.

The whole thing about how evil humans are is true and at the same time untrue. Some basic regulations are needed so that people are not ripped off. If industry can survive only if they pay hunger wages then maybe it there is no reason for it to exist locally or some helping hand is needed, not necessarily in form of cheap credit or release from regulation but some industrial policy like the one Germans have would do something. OC for that one would need to have educated work force. BTW: Germans complain about missing hands on the floor all the time because people are not ready to work for money that are being offered. Seems to be the same story all over. What seems to have been working for England back then was that once one industry was not as profitable as it used to be a new one came around. The only unpleasant part were the hunger and riots on falling part of the curve.

Technically you can still outsource a plumber job to another company. I guess you meant offshoring not being really possible for plumbers and until technology does not replace that job completely this and lawyers stay a good option. Surely due to currently existing legal limitations one still needs lawyers in flesh standing in front of the judge. But research can be outsourced already.

I heard that Island is going to delegalize pr0n - could this act of law be considered a mutilation of innocent Island males then as it obviously affects their brains?

Bodies heavier than air cannot fly either.

revolt of the washing machines and peace on earth are bit more appropriate I think but in general the master had predicted quite some of the things that become reality.

what work? The way this is going these days is that due to interdependent changes in economy, technology, organization etc the masses will be less and less employable. Other than that the diagnosis with tyranny is correct, I think.

I recall reading "The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate The World" in 2011 and thinking how this can evolve and what about things Morozov did not write, because he maybe did not know (or did not dare to write, being afraid of tin foil hat label etc). I have also an impression that in the world so small as ours (thanx to technology) some means of using the streams of data is needed anyway. Not only for terrorists but also for normal criminals. They use technology too and combating them in old fashion way is increasingly impossible. Checks and balances - that is the way to go. But then there are some tiny little problems, namely with democracy itself. We know now how silly it is to believe that our voices count - they do not. We may vote one asshole out of the office (not an easy feat but still possible) but what to do between elections? What about policies that we disagree with and which are anyway introduced?

Quite frankly, when I think about decisions our Great Leaders make (for the sake of democracy, human rights and their corporate friends), I have this sickening feeling of the past long gone - when for instance questions about discrepancies in party approved history books could mean no access to university (fortunately for me communism fell before this happened).