Yeah; the dumb kids sitting at the back of the class eating their crayons, who didn't realize Orwell was referring to communist regimes which already existed at the time. In other words, the same idiots who make up the majority of the various Conspiracy Theory movements today.

Man, I wish I were psychic :(

I totally get your point though. If only we'd never invented the printing press and the telegraph, we'd be completely tyrant-free by now. These newfangled gadgets are always making the world more dangerous for us. Pretty soon we won't even have lawns for yelling at kids to get off of.

Complete fucking nonsense. The average American is more afraid of vaccines than they are of terrorists.

Only in the mind of a delusional sociopath is being ignored the same as being oppressed. And what kind of egomaniac do you have to be in order to believe that you have a right to other peoples attention?

Also, your tinfoil hat seems to be leaking.

So secret that you and your cat were able to find loads of evidence which you would happily share with others if only the MIBs hadn't stolen it from you!

Yeah, very little difference. I mean, both parties are human. And they firmly obey the laws of physics. And no matter how many Americans would like to repeal the law of gravity, it never seems to happen. OPPRESSION!

Only a ignorant child who's never stepped foot outside the western sphere could EVER make such an absurd claim. You have absolutely no idea what real oppression and control are. You're so completely obsessed with your own petty grievances that you can't even be bothered to try and understand the plight of people who's entire lifetimes are spent in absolute terror of saying the wrong thing, or being perceived to be anything short of completely dedicated to the wishes of the state. You have no idea how disgusting your words truly are.

That's hilarious. You're talking about the country which built concentration camps for Japanese citizens, had an official policy of enslaving and then later segregating blacks, and treated the Jews and the Irish as second-class citizens for centuries. That's the country which you think is "doing an increasingly good job on [brutalizing] minorities".

You've either never picked up a history book in your life, or you care more about politics and ideology than you do about reality.

Well while we're making up numbers, why not say it's 3%? Or 93%? As long as you can just pull numbers out of your ass you can make any kind of long-winded comment you like!

That's the inevitable result of constant FUD; people just ignore everything. That's why I'm ok with the idea of labelling "GMO", as long as we go ahead and label everything else.

"May contain trace amounts of Dihydrogen Monoxide".
"Possibly manufactured near tumour-inducing cell towers".
"Likely produced adjacent to a haunted graveyard".

Label everything so people will stop worrying about stupid labels.

So true. It's really time you guys did something about the affordability of your mental-health services.

Kinda funny, then, that bankrupt regimes with 1980s era electronics are orders of magnitude better at this "oppression" thing than our own high-tech governments.

I strongly suspect that those people can still be safely dismissed as tinfoil hat wearers. When you spit out a hundred different conspiracy theories every day, one of them is bound to be right eventually. That's the magic of probability and large numbers.

Everything is ambiguous if you're ignorant. Why does that matter? Should I stop using words with more than three syllables just because someone might misunderstand them?

The phrase "begs the question" is never ambiguous to an educated individual who actually looks at the context in which it's employed. It's only ambiguous to those who either don't understand it's original meaning, or don't bother paying attention to the discussion.

That could be workable, with a few stipulations:

1. The car costs significantly more to cover that liability.
2. The "driver" is no longer legally required to have insurance, since the risk is assumed by the computer/manufacturer.

I'd be willing to pay more for the car if I didn't have to pay for insurance, sine the balance should work out in my favour over time. But if you expect the car company to pay for the accidents, AND you want me to buy insurance ... that's just a non-starter.

Um, no ... it's just that you're responding to something you imagined, rather tan something I wrote.

I'm aware of what "federal law prohibits". Read my comment again, please. I didn't say "receiving kiddie porn isn't at all illegal anywhere in the world", I said "you're not going to jail just for receiving e-mail". There are all sorts of stupid laws on the books which never get enforced.

In any event, my comment wasn't about stupidly written American laws; it was about his mistaken belief that his level of risk is significantly elevated by receiving emails intended for other people.

It hasn't been addressed because there is no such problem. All of the incidents described in the link you provided, as well as your own experience, seem to be explained by user stupidity. No need to invent some mysterious google-bug in order to explain it.

I had a similar experience; some idiot used my google email address, with a dot in the middle (no dot in mine), as his recovery e-mail for a bunch of his other accounts. So I kept getting periodic emails letting me know when he's signed in from a new location. Confused the shit out of me at first. After I contacted him to let him know about it, it turned out he was misspelling his own e-mail address.

When the choice is between user stupidity and a systemic problem, always pick user stupidity.

Nonsense. If this were true, any pissed off person who knows your e-mail address could get your arrested by spamming you with kiddie-porn from an anonymous e-mail provider. You're not going to go to jail just for receiving e-mail.

I stopped driving 2 years ago, voluntarily. My SUV cost me around $800 a month in replacement costs. Another $200 in maintenance. I was burning through $12,000 a year in gas. I spent an average of 1000 hours a year in the car, for work, for groceries, for fun. 999 of those hours were spent focused on the road. I hate talking on the phone while driving.

Consider my annual total: about $25,000 + 1000 hours of my time. For the "privilege" to sit in Chicago traffic.

I'm a consultant. I now use UberX every day. I also use public transportation when I'm not in a rush or when someone isn't paying me to swing by.

I spent about $5000 a year on UberX. $100 a week. While I am being driven around, I can respond to emails, make phone calls. I bill for that time. When a customer wants me to visit them, I pass the UberX fee on to them plus 50%. No one scoffs at it. Some customers will realize the cost of me visiting them is more expensive than just consulting over the phone.

I figure I'm $20,000 ahead in vehicle costs, plus I've literally gained another 600-700 hours of phone and email consulting time a year. Call it $40,000 ahead.

I don't take cabs, because they don't like to come to where my HQ is (ghetto neighborhood). UberX comes 24/7, within minutes.

My little sister had an emergency surgery a few months ago. I immediately hired an UberX driver, who took me from the office, to the hospital. He waited. We then took my sister to her apartment to get her cats and clothes, then he took us to the pharmacy. After, he drove us to our dad's house to drop her off, in the suburbs of Chicago. Then he drove me back to work. 3 hours, $90. I can't get a cab to wait even 10 minutes while I drop off a package at UPS. Forget about them taking credit cards.

UberX charges my Paypal account and they're off. If they're busy, they charge a surcharge. I can pick it or take public transportation.

I know why the Chicago Taxi authorities want Uber gone. But a guy like me is their best customer. Next year I'll budget $10,000 a year for UberX, and it will make my life so much more enjoyable and profitable.

Driving yourself around is dead. It's inefficient. Ridesharing is "libertarian" because it is truly freeing.

Yes. We are restricting your freedom to restrict freedoms of others.
In particular, we are imposing a very small restriction, which prevents you from imposing arbitrarily large restrictions on others.

Are you going to cry foul that the government is restricting your freedom to force people into slavery?