5 ms·

Drawing such a line is unfortunately fundamentally incompatible with current western attitudes. You need to be able to have adult discussions about death and h

Drawing such a line is unfortunately fundamentally incompatible with current western attitudes. You need to be able to have adult discussions about death and harm that WILL happen at the scales we're talking about. These harms are often easy to calculate. The harms that come from surveillance dragnets are less immediate and harder to calculate. So in addition to be able to have a discussion that we're incapable of having, we also need to have the balls to say "this long term non-specific harm of the surveillance state is worse than a few kids getting abused". We're nowhere near being able to do either of those right now. Freedom isn't free but the only people who will talk about the cost are extremists of various flavors.

smolder 4y ago
> we also need to have the balls to say "this long term non-specific harm of the surveillance state is worse than a few kids getting abused". There is a false assumption here that such a surveillance program would even be effective and not just a stepping stone to arguing for more invasive measures when it doesn't fix anything. The better argument is "this long term non-specific harm of government surveillance is worse than the harm it would successfully prevent to children." And then you can go on to describe the specific harms that state surveillance and overreach has brought about or enabled...
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  >There is a false assumption here that such a surveillance program would even be effective and not just a stepping stone to arguing for more invasive measures when it doesn't fix anything. It's a false assumption you're gonna have to argue against so get used to it. In the minds of people who want this crap the harm of a surveillance state is not a guaranteed thing. They think there will be "reasonable access controls" and other fantasy stuff like that.

smolder 4y ago

> we also need to have the balls to say "this long term non-specific harm of the surveillance state is worse than a few kids getting abused". There is a false assumption here that such a surveillance program would even be effective and not just a stepping stone to arguing for more invasive measures when it doesn't fix anything. The better argument is "this long term non-specific harm of government surveillance is worse than the harm it would successfully prevent to children." And then you can go on to describe the specific harms that state surveillance and overreach has brought about or enabled...

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>There is a false assumption here that such a surveillance program would even be effective and not just a stepping stone to arguing for more invasive measures when it doesn't fix anything. It's a false assumption you're gonna have to argue against so get used to it. In the minds of people who want this crap the harm of a surveillance state is not a guaranteed thing. They think there will be "reasonable access controls" and other fantasy stuff like that.