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The cycle of government: 1. We need this tool to stop terrorists. if you don't give up liberty for safety, the terrorists win. 2. (Inevitable terror attack ha

The cycle of government: 1. We need this tool to stop terrorists. if you don't give up liberty for safety, the terrorists win. 2. (Inevitable terror attack happens) 3. Our tools weren't strong enough to stop the terrorists. We need _more_ tools and a larger mandate to stop them. I've been told that, due to the above cycle, we should all realize that the primary purpose of government is to pretend to fail.

nickff 11y ago
Why do you say their purpose is to only pretend to fail? Governments have very little incentive to succeed in many areas. Terrorism appears to be much like regular crime in that if there is little, the government is lauded, and if there is a lot, the government is given more money and power to fight it. *edit: I do not mean to say that government officials were willfully negligent; they have been given an impossible task, and their jobs depend on believing that a little more money and power will allow them to succeed.
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  I don't think we need complicated conspiracy theories that demonise intelligence workers to explain this sort of narrative. There's now a group of people whose job is to use bulk data intercept to predict and stop crimes before they happen, essentially a Minority Report but real (they do other things too, but let's ignore that for now). As no group of people can be 100% effective, they will always occasionally fail even if they succeed most of the time, and when they do their explanation for their own failure will always be "we needed more". And they will truly believe that! No secret agenda needed. From their POV it's the only answer they can possibly give. I fully expect in the coming weeks to learn (shock) that the terrorists had Facebook accounts, used WhatsApp, searched on Google, used iPhones and the DGCE will undoubtably claim that if they had access to all those things the plot could have been detected earlier and stopped. What else are they gonna say? "Whoops, our bad"?
  - nickff 11y ago
    I completely agree with all of your points, and did not mean to imply that governments caused these attacks, or were willfully negligent. I apologize if I did not express this in my previous post.
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  I don't think we need complicated conspiracy theories that demonise intelligence workers to explain this sort of narrative. There's now a group of people whose job is to use bulk data intercept to predict and stop crimes before they happen, essentially a Minority Report but real (they do other things too, but let's ignore that for now). As no group of people can be 100% effective, they will always occasionally fail even if they succeed most of the time, and when they do their explanation for their own failure will always be "we needed more". And they will truly believe that! No secret agenda needed. From their POV it's the only answer they can possibly give. I fully expect in the coming weeks to learn (shock) that the terrorists had Facebook accounts, used WhatsApp, searched on Google, used iPhones and the DGCE will undoubtably claim that if they had access to all those things the plot could have been detected earlier and stopped. What else are they gonna say? "Whoops, our bad"?

nickff 11y ago

Why do you say their purpose is to only pretend to fail? Governments have very little incentive to succeed in many areas. Terrorism appears to be much like regular crime in that if there is little, the government is lauded, and if there is a lot, the government is given more money and power to fight it. *edit: I do not mean to say that government officials were willfully negligent; they have been given an impossible task, and their jobs depend on believing that a little more money and power will allow them to succeed.

mike_hearn 11y ago
I don't think we need complicated conspiracy theories that demonise intelligence workers to explain this sort of narrative. There's now a group of people whose job is to use bulk data intercept to predict and stop crimes before they happen, essentially a Minority Report but real (they do other things too, but let's ignore that for now). As no group of people can be 100% effective, they will always occasionally fail even if they succeed most of the time, and when they do their explanation for their own failure will always be "we needed more". And they will truly believe that! No secret agenda needed. From their POV it's the only answer they can possibly give. I fully expect in the coming weeks to learn (shock) that the terrorists had Facebook accounts, used WhatsApp, searched on Google, used iPhones and the DGCE will undoubtably claim that if they had access to all those things the plot could have been detected earlier and stopped. What else are they gonna say? "Whoops, our bad"?
- nickff 11y ago
  I completely agree with all of your points, and did not mean to imply that governments caused these attacks, or were willfully negligent. I apologize if I did not express this in my previous post.
mike_hearn 11y ago
I don't think we need complicated conspiracy theories that demonise intelligence workers to explain this sort of narrative. There's now a group of people whose job is to use bulk data intercept to predict and stop crimes before they happen, essentially a Minority Report but real (they do other things too, but let's ignore that for now). As no group of people can be 100% effective, they will always occasionally fail even if they succeed most of the time, and when they do their explanation for their own failure will always be "we needed more". And they will truly believe that! No secret agenda needed. From their POV it's the only answer they can possibly give. I fully expect in the coming weeks to learn (shock) that the terrorists had Facebook accounts, used WhatsApp, searched on Google, used iPhones and the DGCE will undoubtably claim that if they had access to all those things the plot could have been detected earlier and stopped. What else are they gonna say? "Whoops, our bad"?