5 ms·

Missing a few steps between "having an administrative state" and "spy on everyone" there, buddy.

qeternity 5y ago
Sure, but history has shown that the former almost universally leads to the latter…so the intermediate steps are somewhat irrelevant. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Has always been this way.
tgv 5y ago
Organisations creep until they are stopped when left untended. They can stop growing because of money shortage, political decisions, lack of manpower, pressure from stakeholders, etc., but there's a strong tendency in all organisations to grow and expand influence. There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies. It's not inevitable, but there certainly is a non-negligible probability.
- niksakl 5y ago
  >There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies Isn't that what democracies call "constitution"? Something that protects citizens' rights again wrong-doing of powerful entities including legislators and the state itself?
  - amcoastal 5y ago
    And how's thats working out so far?
    - buran77 5y ago
      Democracy is the best we have for the people. But while the theory is sound, the practical implementation is usually flawed. The people are "in power" just for that day while they're giving their blessing to their representative. After this, as long as things aren't too abrupt and disadvantage the regular person obviously enough to trigger a violent response, that representative can pretty much represent and defend any other point of view. Usually the one from the otherwise equal but not quite equal, much richer person. And with education being on the bottom of everyone's list, it just gets easier to cover these things up. For things that concern interests far from home it's even easier. Freedom also means you're free to pump as much one sided information as possible. So as long as one can flood the people with Middle Eastern terrorism, Russian hackers, or Chinese human rights abuses, who's going to care about the home team doing the same even at home? Superficially democracy is alive and well but it's like religion, most people observe it only in theory and when it matters to them personally. And when it does matter to them, it doesn't matter to enough other people. Which is why most talking points don't have a strong majority, and they're mostly dealt in a compromising way, which makes everyone equally unhappy (except a very few).
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      Actually it was going reasonably well for 2 or 3 centuries, the mass spying is a recent development. Thus the correct question to ask is "why/how did we break the system that used to work"
      - hindsightbias 5y ago
        People who develop hardware and software made it possible.
        niksakl 5y ago
        I believe it is not about the means and the tooling. Systemic problems need to fix the system, not various outcomes of such problems. Assuming we are talking about democracies, I guess it is up to the people. If the people do not care, then fine. "Nothing to see here, move along". If this is the case, I disagree with "the people", but apparently that is just me... Or few of us.
      - hpoe 5y ago
        The answer is actually because we spent several years with the entire country dedicated tona total war effort in the face of an enemy that was devoted to our total and absolute extinction and subjugation. Following that rather than returning to a peacetime country and disbanding the associated military structure it was instead repurposed for a cold war in the face of another enemy that had sworn themselves to our complete and absolute destruction and which had the capability to do so. In the face of such constant risk of extinction almost any measure was seen acceptable to counteract the threat. However after about 60 years the threat disappeared but the massive institutions built up to combat the threat then needed to continue to justify it's existence as careers and lives had been built upon counteracting the Red menance. Unfortunately these institutions did not cease to exist and continued the same tactics that it was profecient in despite the threat to the existence of the nation. That's basically it in a nutshell.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      Much better than most alternatives so far. And it can be improved further.
    - niksakl 5y ago
      Well, to the best of my knowledge, in most countries, the constitutions themselves suggest some actions to the people in the case somebody is not complying with the constitution. Did we see any of those suggested countermeasures taking place?
Lammy 5y ago
Just wait until you learn what “government” means in Latin :p
- Qwertious 5y ago
  https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/guberno#Latin https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/guberno#Latin According to Wiktionary, it seems to come from steering a ship.
  - bigbillheck 5y ago
    Has to be the same root as 'cybernetic'.
    - niksakl 5y ago
      ...which has the root of the Greek verb "κυβερνώ", which means "to govern", and is also the root of Kubernetes, which means "governor/captain" :)
roenxi 5y ago
One of the steps was included, the comment notes: > ...the problem here is that no one really wants to reign it in... Why shouldn't it spy on people? If the state is fundamentally on our side, that is a win (fuzzy abstract principles like privacy vs. concrete benefits like stopping specific illegal activity). Ditto if the state is neutral. We have no need to keep secrets from a neutral but fundamentally principled entity. Privacy isn't really important enough to worry about if there are just a few bad actors working individually. It'd be a battle of a luxury (privacy) vs a need (security) It is only because the state is fundamentally not on our side that people should be trying to reign it in and use concepts like privacy to do so. At some point any information the state has will be used by your political adversaries to attack. Privacy (from the state) isn't worth anything if the starting point is that the administrative state will be a reliable, proper and responsible bearer of power.
- mLuby 5y ago
  If you can guarantee "good" rulers, then even autocracy isn't so bad—the problem is there will inevitably be bad rulers. Even if I 100% agree with the current administration's policies, I'd be foolish to think there won't be a time when another party (whose polices I 100% disagree with) will be voted into power, and be given access to the same tools to use for what I'd consider nefarious ends. We must ask, when agreeing to give government a new power, how to protect ourselves against their inevitable abuse of that power. The "national security" excuse circumvents that process.

Sure, but history has shown that the former almost universally leads to the latter…so the intermediate steps are somewhat irrelevant. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Has always been this way.

tgv 5y ago

Organisations creep until they are stopped when left untended. They can stop growing because of money shortage, political decisions, lack of manpower, pressure from stakeholders, etc., but there's a strong tendency in all organisations to grow and expand influence. There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies. It's not inevitable, but there certainly is a non-negligible probability.

niksakl 5y ago
>There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies Isn't that what democracies call "constitution"? Something that protects citizens' rights again wrong-doing of powerful entities including legislators and the state itself?
- amcoastal 5y ago
  And how's thats working out so far?
  - buran77 5y ago
    Democracy is the best we have for the people. But while the theory is sound, the practical implementation is usually flawed. The people are "in power" just for that day while they're giving their blessing to their representative. After this, as long as things aren't too abrupt and disadvantage the regular person obviously enough to trigger a violent response, that representative can pretty much represent and defend any other point of view. Usually the one from the otherwise equal but not quite equal, much richer person. And with education being on the bottom of everyone's list, it just gets easier to cover these things up. For things that concern interests far from home it's even easier. Freedom also means you're free to pump as much one sided information as possible. So as long as one can flood the people with Middle Eastern terrorism, Russian hackers, or Chinese human rights abuses, who's going to care about the home team doing the same even at home? Superficially democracy is alive and well but it's like religion, most people observe it only in theory and when it matters to them personally. And when it does matter to them, it doesn't matter to enough other people. Which is why most talking points don't have a strong majority, and they're mostly dealt in a compromising way, which makes everyone equally unhappy (except a very few).
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Actually it was going reasonably well for 2 or 3 centuries, the mass spying is a recent development. Thus the correct question to ask is "why/how did we break the system that used to work"
    - hindsightbias 5y ago
      People who develop hardware and software made it possible.
      - niksakl 5y ago
        I believe it is not about the means and the tooling. Systemic problems need to fix the system, not various outcomes of such problems. Assuming we are talking about democracies, I guess it is up to the people. If the people do not care, then fine. "Nothing to see here, move along". If this is the case, I disagree with "the people", but apparently that is just me... Or few of us.
    - hpoe 5y ago
      The answer is actually because we spent several years with the entire country dedicated tona total war effort in the face of an enemy that was devoted to our total and absolute extinction and subjugation. Following that rather than returning to a peacetime country and disbanding the associated military structure it was instead repurposed for a cold war in the face of another enemy that had sworn themselves to our complete and absolute destruction and which had the capability to do so. In the face of such constant risk of extinction almost any measure was seen acceptable to counteract the threat. However after about 60 years the threat disappeared but the massive institutions built up to combat the threat then needed to continue to justify it's existence as careers and lives had been built upon counteracting the Red menance. Unfortunately these institutions did not cease to exist and continued the same tactics that it was profecient in despite the threat to the existence of the nation. That's basically it in a nutshell.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    Much better than most alternatives so far. And it can be improved further.
  - niksakl 5y ago
    Well, to the best of my knowledge, in most countries, the constitutions themselves suggest some actions to the people in the case somebody is not complying with the constitution. Did we see any of those suggested countermeasures taking place?

Lammy 5y ago

Just wait until you learn what “government” means in Latin :p

Qwertious 5y ago
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/guberno#Latin https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/guberno#Latin According to Wiktionary, it seems to come from steering a ship.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  Has to be the same root as 'cybernetic'.
  - niksakl 5y ago
    ...which has the root of the Greek verb "κυβερνώ", which means "to govern", and is also the root of Kubernetes, which means "governor/captain" :)

roenxi 5y ago

One of the steps was included, the comment notes: > ...the problem here is that no one really wants to reign it in... Why shouldn't it spy on people? If the state is fundamentally on our side, that is a win (fuzzy abstract principles like privacy vs. concrete benefits like stopping specific illegal activity). Ditto if the state is neutral. We have no need to keep secrets from a neutral but fundamentally principled entity. Privacy isn't really important enough to worry about if there are just a few bad actors working individually. It'd be a battle of a luxury (privacy) vs a need (security) It is only because the state is fundamentally not on our side that people should be trying to reign it in and use concepts like privacy to do so. At some point any information the state has will be used by your political adversaries to attack. Privacy (from the state) isn't worth anything if the starting point is that the administrative state will be a reliable, proper and responsible bearer of power.

mLuby 5y ago
If you can guarantee "good" rulers, then even autocracy isn't so bad—the problem is there will inevitably be bad rulers. Even if I 100% agree with the current administration's policies, I'd be foolish to think there won't be a time when another party (whose polices I 100% disagree with) will be voted into power, and be given access to the same tools to use for what I'd consider nefarious ends. We must ask, when agreeing to give government a new power, how to protect ourselves against their inevitable abuse of that power. The "national security" excuse circumvents that process.