But, there were many who read Orwell and were convinced government would eventually devolve to this.
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.
It's an API for a future tyranny that we will be helpless against. Tomorrow is not today. Those in charge will not be the pussycats we have now; such power will attrack tyrants and secret governments
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.
The US government has it's citizens barely able to control their bowels due to unfounded fear of terrorism.
Complete fucking nonsense. The average American is more afraid of vaccines than they are of terrorists.
Dissidents are corralled into "free speech zones" or simply ignored.
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?
The government actively monitors and attempts to disrupt dissent online via operations against sites such as Slashdot.
Also, your tinfoil hat seems to be leaking.
There are secret courts designed to prevent proper oversight and scrutiny.
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!
There is little difference between the two main parties, and the people with the real power don't change even when they do. Americans have very little real democratic influence.
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!
The US has outdone all those oppressive regimes and most of its citizens don't even realize what has happened.
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.
Our government doesn't yet have enough political power to safely brutalize its general population (though it's doing an increasingly good job on minorities)
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.
Let's say 30% of the average purchase is labor costs - double that and the average item then costs (.7+.3*2) = 130% of normal.
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!
I love in California how there are warning labels on everything. And no one cares.
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.
When an American citizen seeks political asylum in Russia,
well,
it's time to take a good look at ourselves.
So true. It's really time you guys did something about the affordability of your mental-health services.
All of this automated surveillance has gotten out of control, and allows the government to oppress people more efficiently than ever before.
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 know of several people who were dismissed as tinfoil hatters prior to the Snowden revelations.
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.
The only inevitability is that the term "begs the question" is now and will remain ambiguous.
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.
Good point with liability, and I'd have to say liability for autonomous driving systems *should* be 100% on the manufacturer.
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
You just made that up.
Um, no
Federal law prohibits
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.
Gmail allows for dot address matching. This is a *huge* problem that has never been addressed.
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.
Stories like this scare the shit out of me because, at any time, if one of those people I happen to receive email for suddenly decides to go into full-creep mode, I could be put in prison for a very, very long time.
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.
and they were filed because Amazon pays a hell of a lot more bribe money in Washington than Apple ever will.
It is unclear what you mean by 'bribe' money, but both Amazon and Apple spent huge sums of money lobbying over the last 15 years or so.
Amazon spends more, but not 'a hell of a lot' more. Both organisations do their absolute best to influence policy in their favour. The idea that Apple is somehow pure in this way is fantasy that could only come from the most delusional fanboy.
Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
