It is not Islam-specific. The equivocal attitude the US displayed during the Kargil conflict — when India was clearly the injured party — is not entirely unlike the attitude displayed this year towards Ukraine (where what few Muslims reside, all strongly resent the invader).
Though Obama (as Clinton back in 1999) talks the talk of supporting the invaded victim, the US would only help with "non-lethal" supplies — and only after a significant delay.
I don't think Apple or Google making phone encryption suck so criminals can find and abuse the law enforcement backdoor would improve public safety.
If it were to suck so badly, yes. But it does not have to...
That said, the paranoid cynic in me suspects, it is — and will be — recoverable already. And the government simply wants us to believe otherwise...
Why would you bring terrorism into this? I made no mention of it... FBI's ability to decrypt private electronics would make it easier for them to prosecute all sorts of criminals — from terrorists to corrupt policemen. At the expense of privacy of the rest of us, of course.
You should be careful about uncritically accepting the way a culture likes to present itself
That's the point. We like to present ourselves as Individuals — and that's why concerns for personal privacy ought to trump those of collective safety, however valid the latter might be.
That we don't always act the way — a significant part of the population thinks, they can force others to be as (and even more) charitable as they are, for example — but that's of no account. Not in this conversation...
In the full quote — in all its different permutations — the given up freedom (liberty) must be essential and the security gained — temporary. With such qualifiers, it becomes a little less obvious, does not it? For example, if the security gained is permanent (as long as device-makers cooperate with authorities), is it worth an essential liberty? Franklin didn't leave any guidance for such case...
I'll take my chance and live life, rather than cower in some hole.
Fortunately, no one — certainly not the FBI — are forcing you into "some hole". Excluded middle much?
That said, I like your spirit, because I too prefer the Individual over Collective...
it is just car dealer lobbyist having a stronger voice (and bigger overall wallet) than Tesla
A variety of new businesses offer a new way of doing things — to the chagrin of the incumbents already profiting from the old way.
Nice to see Tesla having full support of
His blitz continues today with a speech that says encryption will hurt public safety.
I suspect, he is right — it will hurt public safety.
But it will improve individual privacy and America has always valued the cantankerous Individual above the glorious Collective, that other cultures prefer...
As an added bonus, they can start having babies when they're 45!
The effects on the babies (and mothers) be damned...
Seriously, this is a half-measure. If we really want to help women stay in the workforce, we ought to develop incubators. Facebook and Apple may have the monies to fund the necessary research and pilot programs.
Neither the herbicide, nor the TCDD, nor the pharmaceuticals and metabolites you mention have anything to do with genetic modifications — however despicable they may (or may not) be otherwise.
Off-topic much?
2. Some contaminants do bad things to people, even at levels we can't measure today.
That's certainly true — whether the contaminants are genetically modified, or not...
Do you honestly believe that someone would be allowed to run for president of the USA who wasn't in big media's pocket?
I honestly believe, that if your (cynical) point of view was connected to reality, we wouldn't have seen the sort of media bias on display in the last two elections.
One method is to implant spider genes into silkworms, which then act as spider-silk factories.
There are people out there, who are sincerely concerned about whether vitamin-C they are offered was "genetically modified"... How are you going to sell such GMO silk to them?
The rest of us believe that telecom is, was, and (for the foreseeable future) always will be a *natural* monopoly
Natural monopoly is a myth. A myth very convenient for and thus perpetuated by the government officials of various levels as it gives them undue power, but a myth nonetheless.
You can't have meaningful competition for building roads and sewers and power grids
Yes, you can. Tokyo has competing subway lines — why can't New York City? Your GPS is likely to show you several options for any route of appreciable lengths — why can't those different roads be privately-owned and compete?
For example, to leave New York you have many options (most of them requiring payment on top of the taxes) — why can't those bridges and tunnels be privately owned and compete with each other? Maybe, their new owners will consider high traffic a profit opportunity, rather than a burdensome nuisance — and seek to attract more drivers by innovation of both toll-collection and road-maintenance... I dunno, it works for supermarkets... Heck, some private (and disgustingly profit-driven) concern may even undertake building a new tunnel (or a bridge)...
it will always be vastly more efficient for a single entity to install and manage that physical data network, at least at the local level
Really? Why not? In the 20ie we had competing telephone companies — each running its own wires to buildings. Today Google is laying down its own fiber — to much rejoicing on this very site — and AT&T is planning its own alternative, despite your claims of it being "inefficient". Various markets have competing coax-cable providers already. The actual cable-laying is just a (small) part of providing Internet service... Though in theory a monopoly ought to be easier — and thus cheaper — to operate (in any market), in practice any benefit is quickly consumed by the inevitable arrogance of such providers and the concomitant drop of quality and rising end-user prices (any wins in the monopoly provider's costs are compensated for by their fattening up the profit-margins).
We should have made this transition decades ago, but for a variety of reasons didn't
Oh, it is not a "variety" of reasons — but a single one: our government followed that myth of "natural monopolies" and granted cable-TV providers monopoly rights in their respective markets. That law was rescinded in the mid-1990ies, but the damage was done...
Once they have competition, they'll just form a cartel to collectively screw us all over.
Does not happen with restaurateurs, car-makers, nor even the cellular-service providers. Why would it happen with the ISPs?
I don't believe for a moment they're ever going to be anything except for self serving douchebags. Competition won't change that.
People will be looking out for themselves, that much is true. Competition, however, will make providing better service the most profitable course of action.
You guys who think the free market solves problems are pretty fucking deluded.
For all the problems with the free market, nothing humanity has tried works better...
Work without a vision is slavery, Vision without work is a pipe dream, But vision with work is the hope of the world.
