4 ms·

Absolutely spot on! I find it shocking the lack of public reaction to the behaviour of various world governments, be it in the UK, Australia, France, the U.S.,

Absolutely spot on! I find it shocking the lack of public reaction to the behaviour of various world governments, be it in the UK, Australia, France, the U.S., everywhere the government is making a grab for more and wider surveillance powers, the majority of the population seem totally oblivious. There needs to be much wider awareness of this for any serious changes to happen on a wide scale. Problem is, how do you accomplish that?

themartorana 11y ago
The depiction of humans in the movie WALL-E was one of the scariest and most poignant bits of storytelling I have ever seen, and seems to become more true as apathy grows.
- PebblesHD 11y ago
  great movie! I re-watched that recently and it still strikes a chord.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Maslov's hierarchy of needs. Most people don't have time to think about lofty goals like "privacy" when they need all the focus they can get to care about more basic needs like "shelter" and "putting food on the table".
- PebblesHD 11y ago
  A very valid point and an equally troubling problem with modern society. Worrying about things like shelter and putting food on the table should be a non-issue in the 21st century, instead it is a modern epidemic and must be fixed. Having said this non-corporeal but none-the-less essential concepts like privacy, liberty and an expectation of trust in leadership should also be a given, sadly they suffered the same fate.
  - adventured 11y ago
    People have to worry a lot less about putting food on the table in the 21st century than at any other time in world history. Calorie counts have been going up a lot, for decades, across every country that formerly used to suffer deficits. Major famines are practically non-existent today, and were not uncommon in prior centuries. See: calorie count increases across Africa, Asia, South America. Poverty and global inequality also have been dropping gradually for decades. Instead of being modern epidemics, these things are former, ancient epidemics that are being eradicated rapidly.
    - anon1385 11y ago
      Just because famine no longer exists doesn't mean people aren't having to worry about putting food on the table. In the UK over a million people had to visit emergency food banks last year[1], compared to only 125,000 in 2012. Hospitals are seeing such levels of malnourishment that they have started discreetly giving away food parcels to patients[2]. It's estimated that up to 40% of patients admitted to UK hospitals are malnourished and the number of people admitted to hospital specifically because of malnutrition has risen dramatically in the last year. If you are wanting to suggest that this is due political decisions rather than a famine or overall lack of food then yes that is true, but it doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of people in the UK struggling to feed themselves and their children. What's happening in Asia or Africa isn't particularly relevant to the level of political engagement in the UK, which is what this discussion is about. That fact that things are getting worse in the UK while improving in much poorer countries just makes the situation even less excusable. [1] http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects [2] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/28/nhs-hospital-tameside-food-parcels-patients-risk-malnutrition http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/28/nhs-hospital-...
- dfraser992 11y ago
  And now it becomes obvious why, in the UK, that the Tory government is deliberately trying to shred the social fabric with excessive cuts etc - all justified by their illogical ideology of 'austerity'. The fact is, the tax credits cuts are going to take 4 billion pounds out of the economy - people who get those tax credits spend them, they don't squirrel them away in their pension plans or buy more buy-to-lets properties like the well off... I am actually thinking of moving back to the US, it is getting so incredibly insane here. But if you are trying to prevent a revolution - setting up the infrastructure for monitoring the populace while creating the conditions that would precipitate a revolution makes good sense.
- jensen123 11y ago
  Many of the people who don't seem to care about privacy seem to have enough money for the newest iPhone, an SUV or a McMansion, though.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Those things are still lower in the hierarchy.
icanhackit 11y ago
There needs to be much wider awareness of this for any serious changes to happen on a wide scale. Problem is, how do you accomplish that? Don't posit it as a privacy vs law-enforcement thing. At its heart it's game-theory. Let me get a bit abstract first so we can tighten up the lingo. If we start with Cogito ergo sum - the concept that all we know as an individual is that we think and everything else is up for debate, we can also posit that when it comes to intentions we can only know our own. Some people don't even know what they want...I digress. Back to game theory. You as an individual have no idea what someone else's intentions are. You can trust them, but you can't be sure exactly what they want or what they will do. Do you provide all electronic communications; spoken, typed, captured by an imaging sensor, read, downloaded, listened to, purchased etc to a body that has the greatest capacity to control you? If yes... Do you trust all politicians, bureaucrats, and law-enforcement officers? The answer is probably no but we've gotten nowhere because the majority of people have cognitive dissonance when it comes concepts involving technology and privacy intermingling. So can we posit it like a game of cards? If you had the choice to show 2 cards from your hand, 1 card or 0 cards, which would you choose - knowing that the other player has put down none? I'm sure there's a better analogy but I thought I'd put the game-theory idea out there so others can take a stab at creating an effective metaphor.
logingone 11y ago
Increasingly the population are from countries which are technologically and democratically illiterate. *Your country may vary.
madaxe_again 11y ago
In the face of a breathless and narrative-toeing media, you can only win by using the same tools as they use. You can't fight fire with fire - the more loudly you decry these policies the more rapidly you alienate moderates and hard-liners alike. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Rather, I think change has to come from one (or both) of two places. Firstly, inarguable grass roots initiatives, such as crowd-sourced direct democracy, which alter the fundamental structure (I.e. That nation states and representative governance are the only way to go) upon which arguments rest. The other is to give your opponents enough rope with which to hang themselves - to which end the snooper charter may eventually play. If this government put forth a statement decrying the UN, moderates may scratch their heads and wonder. Hard-liners will join in, as they have against human rights, but moderates will be turned off. Either way, this war (for it is war) must be fought in the battlefield of minds, and with subtlety. The most powerful idea is the one that you think is your own.

themartorana 11y ago

The depiction of humans in the movie WALL-E was one of the scariest and most poignant bits of storytelling I have ever seen, and seems to become more true as apathy grows.

PebblesHD 11y ago
great movie! I re-watched that recently and it still strikes a chord.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Maslov's hierarchy of needs. Most people don't have time to think about lofty goals like "privacy" when they need all the focus they can get to care about more basic needs like "shelter" and "putting food on the table".

PebblesHD 11y ago
A very valid point and an equally troubling problem with modern society. Worrying about things like shelter and putting food on the table should be a non-issue in the 21st century, instead it is a modern epidemic and must be fixed. Having said this non-corporeal but none-the-less essential concepts like privacy, liberty and an expectation of trust in leadership should also be a given, sadly they suffered the same fate.
- adventured 11y ago
  People have to worry a lot less about putting food on the table in the 21st century than at any other time in world history. Calorie counts have been going up a lot, for decades, across every country that formerly used to suffer deficits. Major famines are practically non-existent today, and were not uncommon in prior centuries. See: calorie count increases across Africa, Asia, South America. Poverty and global inequality also have been dropping gradually for decades. Instead of being modern epidemics, these things are former, ancient epidemics that are being eradicated rapidly.
  - anon1385 11y ago
    Just because famine no longer exists doesn't mean people aren't having to worry about putting food on the table. In the UK over a million people had to visit emergency food banks last year[1], compared to only 125,000 in 2012. Hospitals are seeing such levels of malnourishment that they have started discreetly giving away food parcels to patients[2]. It's estimated that up to 40% of patients admitted to UK hospitals are malnourished and the number of people admitted to hospital specifically because of malnutrition has risen dramatically in the last year. If you are wanting to suggest that this is due political decisions rather than a famine or overall lack of food then yes that is true, but it doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of people in the UK struggling to feed themselves and their children. What's happening in Asia or Africa isn't particularly relevant to the level of political engagement in the UK, which is what this discussion is about. That fact that things are getting worse in the UK while improving in much poorer countries just makes the situation even less excusable. [1] http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects [2] http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/28/nhs-hospital-tameside-food-parcels-patients-risk-malnutrition http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/28/nhs-hospital-...
dfraser992 11y ago
And now it becomes obvious why, in the UK, that the Tory government is deliberately trying to shred the social fabric with excessive cuts etc - all justified by their illogical ideology of 'austerity'. The fact is, the tax credits cuts are going to take 4 billion pounds out of the economy - people who get those tax credits spend them, they don't squirrel them away in their pension plans or buy more buy-to-lets properties like the well off... I am actually thinking of moving back to the US, it is getting so incredibly insane here. But if you are trying to prevent a revolution - setting up the infrastructure for monitoring the populace while creating the conditions that would precipitate a revolution makes good sense.
jensen123 11y ago
Many of the people who don't seem to care about privacy seem to have enough money for the newest iPhone, an SUV or a McMansion, though.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Those things are still lower in the hierarchy.

icanhackit 11y ago

There needs to be much wider awareness of this for any serious changes to happen on a wide scale. Problem is, how do you accomplish that? Don't posit it as a privacy vs law-enforcement thing. At its heart it's game-theory. Let me get a bit abstract first so we can tighten up the lingo. If we start with Cogito ergo sum - the concept that all we know as an individual is that we think and everything else is up for debate, we can also posit that when it comes to intentions we can only know our own. Some people don't even know what they want...I digress. Back to game theory. You as an individual have no idea what someone else's intentions are. You can trust them, but you can't be sure exactly what they want or what they will do. Do you provide all electronic communications; spoken, typed, captured by an imaging sensor, read, downloaded, listened to, purchased etc to a body that has the greatest capacity to control you? If yes... Do you trust all politicians, bureaucrats, and law-enforcement officers? The answer is probably no but we've gotten nowhere because the majority of people have cognitive dissonance when it comes concepts involving technology and privacy intermingling. So can we posit it like a game of cards? If you had the choice to show 2 cards from your hand, 1 card or 0 cards, which would you choose - knowing that the other player has put down none? I'm sure there's a better analogy but I thought I'd put the game-theory idea out there so others can take a stab at creating an effective metaphor.

logingone 11y ago

Increasingly the population are from countries which are technologically and democratically illiterate. *Your country may vary.

madaxe_again 11y ago

In the face of a breathless and narrative-toeing media, you can only win by using the same tools as they use. You can't fight fire with fire - the more loudly you decry these policies the more rapidly you alienate moderates and hard-liners alike. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Rather, I think change has to come from one (or both) of two places. Firstly, inarguable grass roots initiatives, such as crowd-sourced direct democracy, which alter the fundamental structure (I.e. That nation states and representative governance are the only way to go) upon which arguments rest. The other is to give your opponents enough rope with which to hang themselves - to which end the snooper charter may eventually play. If this government put forth a statement decrying the UN, moderates may scratch their heads and wonder. Hard-liners will join in, as they have against human rights, but moderates will be turned off. Either way, this war (for it is war) must be fought in the battlefield of minds, and with subtlety. The most powerful idea is the one that you think is your own.