"The part of the NSA that does domestic surveillance is relatively small and not nearly as intrusive as the tinfoil hatters want to believe."

There's this guy named Snowden who showed us just how much complete bullshit this really is. Their domestic surveillance may not be as hardcore as their foreign, but it's still pretty damn hardcore. We don't really need tinfoil hats for this one - the evidence was provided.

People didn't trust the government before Snowden either. The only difference here is that Snowden offered us definitive evidence that what we all suspected was going on really was going on. Fuck the NSA. It has strayed so far from its actual purpose I hope it drowns in its lack of educated help. At this point, even tech companies with a strict profit motive are more trustworthy than the US government.

(George Lucas stumbles across the shielded containment room to press up against the glass in a strained effort where an emotional JJ Abrams is on his knees looking inward. A single tear streaks down the left side of his face, clinging to his chin)

George Lucas (wheezing, seeming exhausted): Franchise ... out of danger...?

...Nintendo couldn't further alienate its fanbase, they pull this stupid shit. It's no shock they're starting to suffer the slow death.

One thing people seem to constantly forget is that most of the people in star wars films - especially ep1 - 3, are fucking terrible actors. The very few that weren't were already well known.

"Let's say every company gets about three innovation tokens."

Bullshit hypothetical statements are bullshit.

I honestly think it's a topic worth pursuing, I just don't think it's a topic worth discussing if you have no background in it. It's like me offering up my concerned opinions about the Large Hadron Collider when the closest I've ever been to high energy particle collisions is high school physics. It bothers me that we place any stock at all in the uninformed opinions of famous people.

We have plenty of machine learning experts, and none of these people fit in to that category. We listen to them because they're celebrities, not because they know anything useful about the topic.

Not one of them is an expert in AI systems.

They have however maintained a farely solid voter base through recruitment of a younger generation who sadly don't seemed informed enough to see greens for what they really are.

The only remotely mainstream party in Australia politics with a progressive, centre-left, social democratic policy base ?

Pretty sure that's why they're getting the youth vote - because they're the only party that give a shit about demographics after baby boomers and have policies with a view past the next election.

Greens really are part of labor now, the only time they vote against labor is when they see a chance to gain publicity or popularity.

The Greens have a well developed and mature policy platform. They promote legislation that aligns with it.

no offense but it sound more like you are the one getting their information from Rupert to have such a positive view of them.

Murdoch portraying the Greens favourably ? You live in a very different world to me.

I think the biggest indictment of them is the fact even my highly pro environmental friends refuse to vote for them as they see them as only a destructive force towards environmental sustainability and see either coalition or labor as a better choice for the environment.

I'd love to hear the rationale behind their thinking.

Because I'm at a loss how two parties promoting growth at all costs, overconsumption, exploitation of the environment (stripe-mining Coal, CSG, dumping of spoil on the reef, etc) could possibly lead to a "better choice for the environment".

I think you are thinking of the greens from more than a decade ago. The Greens haven't stood for that for a long time. They are basically part of labor and push for policies for short term rather than taking consideration of the long term effects or goals.

Here is the Greens policy platform.

Tell us about which parts bother you.

The greens having power would probably do more damage to human decency and DEFINITELY more damage to the environment and the prospects of a sustainable future (if you destroy business you can't head to sustainability, you head towards being a 3rd world country or Greece).

Yes, obviously they'd do far more damage than the "growth at all costs", "destroy the middle classes" pro-oligopoly parties.

The real-world equivalent of this would be a little drone following you around recording where you went, who you talked to, where you went shopping, when you did it, etc, etc.

I wouldn't be comfortable with that. Would you ?

They are all pretty much scumbags. Not even most environmentalists vote for the greens anymore as they are little more than an extension of the labor party, focused on short term thinking and power plays.

Greens an extension of Labor ? Now there's a chuckle.

Sounds like you get most of your political information from your local Rupertarian.

I'm sure a few hardcore greenies have abandoned the Greens as they slowly morph into a generalist centre-left social-democracy party, but their share of the primary vote has remained pretty constant for a decade or more.

If these people were actually conservatives, then they'd try to maintain the status quo, not introduce new controls, etc.

They are conservatives. They want to go back to the good old days of Feudalism.

Progressivism is how we escaped that history and created democracies, free speech, equal rights, and the like.